New York Assistant District Attorney Saul Bienenfeld talks his career and advocacy work

And we're back. We talk Weeklies After the Talk on WPPM or P Philadelphia one on six point five left film. We talk Weeklies after the Talk with your boy Charles Gregory and a. Beautiful classy Lady Sparkle and a. Beautiful Lauren Sizzle. Will you already know what we got next? We have someone with my a tremendous model of respect for who's doing the honors. He is a criminal defense attorney and a former assistant attorney with a special Narcotics Bureau, holding a j D from Benjamin and Cardaux of Law. Soul now uses more than twenty years of courtroom experience to defend his clients. Y'all already know what to do. Let's give a warm We talk weekly. Welcome to Saul Benefild. Hey, how are you, my friend? How are you? I am so well, I am so happy to be here. It's great to see everyone on this wonderful Saturday night. Fantastic. It's a pleasure to have you. It's a pure to have yes, absolutely absolutely. You know, we usually with you know, the question to our guess with how how are you? How was your day? You know, it's a lot going on in the world in the country, you know, and so we like to see your status. How you feeling a day. I'm doing well today. You know, I had a very nice day. I went to synagogue in the morning, I had had hanging out with friends in the afternoon. So you know, I can't let the world politics and what's going on in the world affect my saturdays. I just like to chill out, relax between me and God and have a good time that way. Wonderful, wonderful take, wonderful take. I know, since you got on, Lauren is actually here. I mean, your field is what she does, and so we're super excited to have you here. But I want to start before we get into those the deep questions, right, I want to start with, you know, what actually got you in you know law? You know, because you know, it's one of those things where most people get into it because something affected him where they feel like they want to get into it, or you know, maybe they have a father and then you know that that studies law and you know they're the progeny of that. So what actually started your journey into this field? So it's a great question. So I always wanted to help people. I just didn't know whether I should be a doctor or a lawyer, but I needed to help people. And I think that the idea that me becoming a criminal defense attorney actually started with what happened to me in high school. When I was in high school, I went to high school in Brooklyn, but I lived at in Long Island. So I had something called a subway pass. In New York City. Students back then had a pass. Theydn't have to pay for the subway. They could walk right through. You show your pass, you walk right in. So I was talking to my friend walking down the subway and I had to pass and he didn't, and I walked out, walked through the exit. He walked behind me, and he gets arrested. And I'm like, no, no, no, he didn't mean to to not pay the fare. He has the money, he could pay the fare. I was telling the police officer, you know, just just let him go, lethim go back and pay the fare. And the police office had would not hear it. He was going to arrest him. That's it. He walked through the exit. He's getting arrested, and I worked so hard trying to free him, and I said, this is what I want to do. I knew it in high school. I said, this is what I want to do. This kid is wrongly accused. He totally did not mean to walk through the exit. He was just in conversation with me, and that's what happened. And I was like, I need to do this. I need to do this for a living. I need to defend people accused of crimes. And that's how I ended up. Well, you you in the right space, because I mean, this is what we do. We advocate, like our advocacy work as it relates to the unjust and targeting and marginalizes people is how we lead as we go on this journey of We talked weekly in cover. I mean we always talking about you know, truth and justice and being honor you know, just honor a loan. And I love the fact that you know, you talked about especially your position as a criminal attorney because your goal is to protective people, right, and so the advocacy work that you have been doing, do you feel that you're making you're moving the needle, so to speak. You do one thing and then other issues pop up, right, And so it's a big conversation with you know, quote unquote Ice right now right. It used to be police brutally. Now is police brutality on another level so to speak? Right, So what are your thoughts on that? So on an individual basis, you know, I see myself moving the needle, There's no question about it. On a global basis, I'm only one person, you know. That's why I belong to organizations like the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and other organizations, and the bar associations and other associations that as a as a voice, we could go ahead and influence Washington, d C. And we can influence Congress, and we can influence our state legislatures as a group. So as an individual, certainly with one client one on one, I am definitely making the difference. And as the group, I do see that the group can make a difference. There's an immigration department part of the American Bar Association that is dealing with the ice issue, and as a group, they are making a difference. It's gonna take a long time. Obviously, it's not something that's gonna happen immediately. It's not something gonna happen overnight. But at least I'm part of it, and I know that I'm doing something to help. Yeah, fantastic before I let Lauren jump in because I know she She's so ready, you know this is her fiel. But I do have one last question for you. Every attorney has this kind of aha moment or is this a case that that kind of sets the standard for them with something that they never forget. What is that case for you? Wow? A man was accused of raping his stepdaughter and there was something in it that I knew he didn't do it. I knew that for whatever reason, she just made up that story. And I worked my heart out to make sure that he was not convicted. And I did such a good job that he was not even indicted. And the way I did it was I had him present in front of a grand jury, that he actually spoke in front of the grand jury. Most attorneys won't even take that chance. And I was able to prove to the grand jurist, to twenty three people that she just wasn't telling the truth. And that is a story that will stick with me forever. Another story that sticks with me forever, and the reason that sticks with me forever is because the client is ever so grateful, is that a mother was accused of actually killing her own daughter, and again, this was a frame job. There was no question in my mind. It's a horrible accusation. She was totally innocent. I worked my guts out, I worked with Theme's office, I worked with my own medical expert, had my own autopsy done, and I was able to prove that she couldn't have done it. Every single year, four times a year, she writes me letter thanking me. She never put such an actress on it. She doesn't want me to write her back. She just gives me an update on what's going on in her life. And then the unshore was right and none of this could have happened without you, So thank you so much good. It's like I've never seen a tremendous amount of gratitude from anyone. I mean, you could say thank you, maybe send me a bottle of wine. It's very nice. What times a year to write me a letter updating your life and thanking at the last lesson it is always the same, and none of this could ever happen without you. That's real gratitude. And this is going on already fourteen years. Wow yeah, oh wow yeah, So just you know, and thank you for joining the show today. So I'm happy and excited to have you here tonight. I'm just as you were talking about some of the cases that you that you've done and some of the people that you represented, I just couldn't help to think about a lot of the cases that we're seeing now, and I just wanted to know how difficult is And this may not be in your case, but how difficult is an attorney's job when if you think about the climate that we're in now and a lot of the things that are going on when it comes to the First Amendment rights and and a lot of people advocating for their constitutional rights, how difficult is an attorney's job when it when some of the people they are now representing are fighting for democracy? Like, how difficult is that for an attorney? You see people who you know, you, you, you, you, everybody. We're we're all. Entitled to our constitutional rights, and you see people now who are trying to fight and advocate for those and they're finding themselves on the you know, opposite side of justice. Right. So I always say, I I don't defend the crime. I defend the constitution. Murder is bad, rape is bad. I'm not defending murder. I'm not defending rape. It's bad. There's a reason people go to jail when they're convicted of that. But in order to get to that point, you have to follow the rules of the constitution of this country, and you follow the rules of evidence. And if the government does not following those rules, I want to reveal it. I want to show it to people. I want to explain it to a judge. I want to show why the rules weren't followed. Because the rules weren't followed in my case, they might not be followed in someone else's case, and that's wrong. So I need to protect the constitution. I'm not defending a crime, and when an attorney has that mindset, my mindset is I'm not defending the crime. The crime is a terrible thing, but I'm defending the constitution and therefore defending this individual. I have no problem going to sleep at night. I have no problem telling people what I do for a living. And when people challenge me on it, I explained to them very well. I said, please, my client is accused of this crime. I'm not defending the crime. I'm defending the individual and the constitution. And that think sets me apart from a lot of other attorneys who do get bogged down in it and who do get you know, caught up in it, and they're like, no, no, no, we have to change that. We have to change the law. We don't have to change the law. We have to make sure that the law is being followed properly. Mm hmmmm. So you said that you believe an educated client is the best defendant. Could you, you know, explain that for our viewers here that are that are watching this, and and why is it important to be an educated defendant? Because for for people who are not necessarily in a courtroom, or or don't have that experience of being in a courtroom, or or maybe they have but not necessarily like in it, thinking that they don't have any power, why is it important to educate yourself as a defendant going into the courtroom. Most people think they could do this on their own. If you needed surgery, you would probably go to a surgeon. You wouldn't say, oh, let me just go to the store buy a scalpel. I'll go on YouTube and figure out how to do this, or I'll ask chat GBT how to do this. You would go to a surgeon. But people when it comes to lawyers they think I could do this on my own. When it comes to the police and talking to the police, they think I could do this on my own, and they can't. So they need to be educated about these things. And the most important thing I need to educate most of my clients about is do not talk to the police. Do not talk to the FBI. Do not think you're going to talk your way out of this. You will not. The police came and knocked on your door at seven o'clock in the morning, not because they wanted a cup of coffee, and not because they just picked your name out of the phone book. It's because you're a suspect, whether you know it or not. No matter how kind they are and how polite they are, you're a suspect. You have information that they want to hear, and you may say it in the wrong way. Your body language might give off a sense of I have something to hide. Don't talk to the police. Say I have a lawyer. I want to call my lawyer. Once you tell a police officer or the FBI in this country that you have a lawyer, they must stop questioning you. That's the law. That's the law in our country. They have to stop questioning you, and if you say I have a lawyer, they'll say, okay, get the layer on the phone. They might want to talk to the lawyer, but they can't question you at all. So that's why I love educated clients, and I most especially love educated clients who actually listen to me, because unfortunately there are clients who hear what I have to say and say, oh, that's okay. He doesn't always talking about I'm much smarter than the police, and then I just there in the pretinct three hour four hours later. Wow, that's awesome. I love that you said that, and I love that you're providing that education to your clients because there's a lot of people who are who are, you know, just just stopped or racially profiled, and they feel like that they have to comply because they're stopped. And I think having the education and just knowing your rights and what you are, what you're able to do, I think that that puts, you know, puts the power within their hands. You know, you know what before I know that Spark has a question. But while we're on that, I do have a question, right because you say that what should because I would I think this is a great time for you to give like a quick little tip if someone is stopped, you know our our mayor here, don't call it stop. And first she called them terry stops right, and so, uh, what do What should we do if we are we feel like we are profiled and stop by the police as a stop in frist what should someone do? So the most important thing is to be polite and not to be aggressive. The next thing is to understand that the only information that you have to give a police officer is what's called pedigree information, which is your name, your date of birth, your address. That's it. I mean sometimes they ask for social Security number. You really don't have to give a secial creedum. In some cases you do, some cases you don't. But all you need to give is your pedigree, name, address, date of birth. Okay, any other question. You don't have to answer that question. I want an attorney. I'm not, you know. The inter most of the thing is when a police officer pulls you out for speeding, the first question they ask is do you know how fast you're going? Right away, they're going to try to, you know, mess you up. Oh, you know, no matter what you say, if I say I was going to limit. They have a radar gun that says you aren't that you're lying if you say I was I was speeding, I'm sorry that you have an admission that you were speeding. So the first thing you should say the police officers, I'm not going to answer that question. You know, if you want my pedigree information, I'll give it to you. You have to give over your license, you have to give it the registration for the car, and then your insurance. And that's it. Because we have a license a privilege to drive in this country, not a right, so we have to prove that we have that license. But that's it. No other question should ever be answered, and the police always do the same thing. Do you know how fast? Do you know why I pulled you over? I'm not going to answer any questions. I'll give you my information, but I'm not going to answer any questions. When a police officer stops you for a terry style but stop and frisk like we have here in New York, and they actually want to touch your physical body, right, the instinct that a person has is why are you stopping me? You know what are you looking for? You know? What did I do wrong? You know? And you want to challenge the law of the law, which is fine. I understand that. I understand it's a natural instinct. But if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to hide. And the only thing that they're allowed to do is if they have reasonable suspicion is to give you a pat down, and that's it. They can't even go into your pockets unless they have more reasonable suspicion that they feel a gun in there, which is very rare. Okay, So the frisk they have to record it. You have a right afterwards to do a foil information freedom of information law to get a copy of what they wrote down. And if you want to bring a lawsuit because you think that you were unlawfully stopped and unlawfully frisked, go see if civil rights attorney. You probably have a good case. You might get a couple of thousand dollars in court because you were stopped and racially profiled, which is totally absurd in this day and age. Yeah, and real quick, how is reasonable suspicion defined. An articulate reason, So as you have to speak the reason why you suspect this person was either committing a crime at the time or committed a crime in the past, right, So you have to spell it out in words why the person committed the crime, and it has to be reasonable. So, in other words, if I have over the radio that somebody in a red jacket with a black hat walking down the street just robbed a lady and I see you with a red jacket and a black hat, is that reasonable? Is it not reasonable? Case? Slow goes both ways. Okay, it depends how popular red jackets are, depends how popular black hats are. Okay, the combination. How popular is the combination. But it may be reasonable, it may not be. That's where a good defense lawyer comes in and says, this was not reasonable because five hundred people were wearing red jackets and black hats that night. It wasn't enough of a description. Thank you, thank you for that glass part. So I wanted to read one of our guests that's here virtually Monica Allison. So she says she has a question. She says, I run the Heddington Participatory Defense Hub in West Philadelphia. Why is it so difficult for community to support families and advocate for accused loved ones. Defense attorneys are good for saying they don't need community can you give your input on that. Well, it's it's unfortunately that people aren't supporting people accused of crimes because an accusation is not a conviction. A family member needs family the most when they're just accused of a crime. That is when the family, that is when the family should really stick up for that person and help that person and not shun the person. What happens is family, and it was constantly shunned somebody accused of a crime. You get arrested, that said, don't don't talk to my kids, don't come to my house. That's what the that's what the time. The person needs the people the most, and defense attorneys sometimes work more as social workers than defense attorneys, And at least in my practice, you know, to explain to the family, this is just an accusation. We're going to get through this. You know, you should treat the person like you treated the person all along. Just because he was arrested or just because he was indicted doesn't make him any different than he was last week. He's the same person and if you loved them last week, you should love him again now and hold your judgment because people need support after an arrest and after indictment more than ever, and the support just should not come for me. The defense attorneys should come from his same community. Churches should not three people when they're a crimes. Synagogue should not throw people when they're accused of crimes. They should stand up in a rally for them. Because I have so many clients that are innocent, that are accused of crimes, and I have to prove it. I have one other question. I didn't read your entire bio. It's very impressive, but in your bio, you did you start off as a procutor. I believe you ninety percent conviction rate, but now it's basically on the other side. Can you talk more about that and what made you, you know, want to start. I knew I want I wanted to see both. I knew that I wanted to do criminal defense, but I wanted to see the other side first. So after law school, I had a great opportunity to work for the Manhattan District Attorney's office. And when I met with Robin Morgan Thou who was the DA at the time, he asked me the first day I came into the office, he called me up to his office says, what do you want to do here. I said, I want to do trials. He said, okay, by the time you get back to your room, right back to your office, there'll be a trial on your desk. I was like laughing, like, I just graduated law school, and I give me a trial. And sure enough he gave me a trial. And the nicest things about being a day especially in New York, is you have total autonomy over your case from start to finish, from the time they were arrested, and they come into what's called ECB, which is an Early Case Assessment Bureau the DA, even one who just graduated law school a couple of months ago, has to right this say no, I'm not going to prosecute this case. And if he does prosecute the case, that same DA assistant DA gets a chance to put it into the grand jury if it's felony, and gets a chance to try it. From the beginning to the end, it's the same person. So I love the fact in that office I had the autonomy over these cases and I only had one job to do, and that was to do justice. So if I felt the police officer was lying to me, I would tell him right away, I'm sorry. I don't believe this case, go release your client. And that was it. And I was able to do that, and I've done that a couple of times where a police officer would come in and I felt that the evidence just to watch was not strong. I said, we're not going to ragn this person. Go ahead, I'm going to what's called DP the case, which is declined to prosecute the case. You go ahead, find him and release them from the system. And then there were times where no, there was clear cut evidence that the person committed the crime, and I took that case through the trial. So I I wanted that experience. I had that experience. I knew it was a three year commitment. I stayed for three and a half years, and I'm very grateful that I did because I was able to see it from the inside. And once you could see it from the inside, it's our idea on you're defending cases because you know everyone in the office, you know how they act, you know the good players, and unfortunately there are some bad players, and you have everyone's number, so to speak, and you could just go ahead and help your clients and just concentrate on helping people accuse the crimes. You know, go ahead, No, I'm sorry, good nose. I was just going to say, you know that that sound very familiar to a position that are our DA in Philadelphia. Larry Krassner kind of takes right. But I'm curious to know your position on because on the idea of being soft on crime, right, and so we used to have a DA you know Lynn Abraham where I mean literally, it appeared that she just didn't care lock them up, throw them up the way to kick right. But then you have someone like Larry come along and it appears that there's more. He understands the nuance right, that there's shades of gray. It's just not that this throwing way locking way to key, and he gets, in my opinion, he gets a lot of pushback and vitrio because he believes that there is a checking balance right now, I don't want to say I'm Procrashner, but what I will say is that it's good to see that people are accepting the other pieces of the puzzle versus the black and white piece. With that as context, what are your thoughts on, you know, this idea on being hard on crime to deter versus the understanding that again there are shades and gray, and let's put them through the due diligence because that's what our system is here for. Yeah, I believe that police officers and district attorneys need that balance a lot, and they need to understand the balance and not every case needs to be prosecuted. There are defendants and I'm going to call them defendants, or let's call them arrestees. There are arrestees who do not need to go through the system to learn their lesson, and you could tell which ones are which you could. You don't have to put everyone through the system and give them criminal records for the rest of their lives. Some of them can be rehabilitated if necessary, Okay, based on going to different programs. And sometimes you're better off not prosecuting a case, telling them you have to complete this program, show me a certificate of completion, we won't prosecute you. I much rather see that than to see everyone being going through the system, because first of all, the system can't handle it. We don't have enough judges, which we don't have enough court offices, we don't have enough court rooms, you know, to handle all the arrests that might come in. So they really need to be what you want to call it, soft on crime, called soft don crime, but it's more being more particular of who is going to be prime secuted. Not everyone who's committed a crime in the eyes of the police officer needs to be prosecuted. That's the bottom line. Go ahead, Lauren, I'm saying, Oh I was. I was going to say, you know, as an assistant district attorney or even as a defense attorney, what what would you say, was I guess the biggest case where you felt the most. I don't want to say, I don't want to say disappointed or or you didn't you know, get what you wanted? What what case was that if you could, if you could talk about it, or. I didn't get what I wanted? That's interesting, you know it actually probably was. When I was an assistant DA in the Special Narcotics Bureau, I had I had a defendant who was ecused of having I think it was twenty five pounds of marijuana, okay, And because it was twenty five pound, it was a major felony and he's facing ten years in prison, and I tried my best to get the defense attorney to plead it out where he could only do a year in prison, and he. Wouldn't and I had to try the case. And I tried the case, and that sentencing I basically didn't I didn't say anything that I said, Judge, do whatever you have to do. I didn't want him to do ten years on a marijuana case, but I have no choice. I'm a district attorney, right and I'm a sister, and I have to follow the laws of the people. So I said, Judge, you know I'm leaving sentencing up too. I'm making no recommendations whatsoever. And I assumed the judge understood that meant that whatever the minimum is, you could give him all right, And the defense attorney did a nice job at sentencing, and then judge gave him like twelve years more than the minimum, and I was like shock. He said, okay, can I hug my son before I go? And the judge was like, it's up to the court officers, and the court officers were like no, and I stepped in. I said just a. Second, I said, please let him hug his son. I said, he's gone away for twelve years. I said, I don't know when they didn't be able to touch again. And his son was like this all the time. I said, we're in the courtroom, you surround him, let him hug his son. That that I mean, how long, you know how long It's like over thirty years ago, and I'm still thinking about that. I'm still thinking about that hug today. And it was and it was I don't want to say, oh it was marijuana, no big deal, but it was marijuana. You know, it was a lot of marijuana, but it was marijuana, you know. And it still affects me today. Remember remember the court offs is not wanting to let him hug. Remembering the hug, Remember him walking away, Remember his son crying. All those things affected me and they still affects me today. And we have all these dispensaries everywhere and now it's an exactly yeah. And just to know that, you know, some of those cases now like that they're getting you know, the rehabilitative programs or the yeah yeah, they're being offered those a lot. Of early release, yes. Yeah, yeah, sure, short sentences. And so you've mentioned something about the judge. So with that being said, from all of the experience and the time you spend in the courtroom, who really has more power? And when I say most power, and I mean it's from a layman's term, but let us know, is it the judge, is it the prosecutor, is it the system itself? Where does that lie? And I know there's isolated incidents, but not in totality, but just again in the layman's term, who had who holds more of the power with the decision making? The judge always always the judge, because the judge is always deciding what evidence is allowed to be coming in, what evidence can come in, And there's so many you know, we say he's the judge of the law and the juries, the judge of the facts, but the truth is, if the jury's not getting all the facts, so the judge is controlling it. So the judge has all the power in that courtroom because he's making the decision what the jury could hear and can't hear. So it's always it's always the judge. The prosecutor might be deciding how to charge something, how much of a level to charge it, whether to charge it or not. I hear that, But once they're charging it and I'm coming up with evidence that's not being allowed in for whatever reason, there is all right, that's the judge basically telling me, soul, I want you to. Lose, not giving not giving any type of am I four against. But it just made me think about the O. J. Simpson trial. I don't know why, but when you just said all of that, it made me think about what took place during that time. So all right, thank you for your answer. It happened during the Seawan Combs trials. It's happened in the Alexander Brother's trial. Has that beened a lot? It's been happening a lot recently. Also, there's a lot of evidence that did not come in during the Alexander Brother's trial that really should have come in. Wow. Wow, if the glove don't fit, you must have quit. Huh No. So I have a question for you. And this this time went so fast, and I love that you're on here, and you are the type of I guess that I would say, come back. Make sure you come back so we can talk a little more, because there's so many issues that come up every day, right that we can. Yeah, yeah, you have to come back. So is there something that you think of and say to yourself like, wow, I wish I would have known this then that if you know now, you would do differently. What is that one thing that you if you say to yourself, I wish I would have known that back then, that you know now. Such an amazing questions, like we have mind reading going on here. I have a client that I begged him not to talk to the police, and I begged him not to, you know, discuss this case. And I told him everything except for one thing. And I feel crazy that I didn't tell him this. So he is accused of having child pornography on his phone. And the way he was caught was he was leaving the country and a Homeland security officer stops him and says, can you give me your phone? And he gives him the phone and the homeland security officer says, what's your password? And he tells him the password. What you do not have to give the password? Now I knew this, but I didn't tell him. If you ever asked for the password, don't give it. You don't have to give it. So I want all your audience to know you do not have to give the password to your phone. I mean, you might be delayed and you might miss your trip, okay, and they might be very upset about it, but you do not have to give the password to your phone. It is your protection at your first amendment, right, all your secrets are on your phone. You do not have to give that password. And I didn't tell him that. Unfortunately, he's in jail right now. And I'm not saying that he wouldn't be if he didn't give the password, because they probably have ways to break into the phone, but at least it would have made it a lot more difficult for the government to do so. So I want your whole audience to know. I want the whole world to know that if you're stopped at an airport or at a border and you're asked for the password of your phone, you do not have to give it. That's it. Wow, that's such great information. I didn't know that most people aren't. I think it happens because most people are intimidated with people in law enforcement, right they tell him to do something and they just automatically do it. So it's good to know. I'm gonna just say, you gotta contact my attorney, call counselor saw Benefield, and you don't talk to me. That's funny. It's amazing, amazing, amazing. Is there something that you feel that you didn't have an opportunity to talk about the day that you want, you know, the community and people who's watching to know. You know, I just want to repeat, don't think you're smarter than the police. You're probably not, although you might think you are. And if you want me to tell you are privately, I'll tell you are privately, but you're not. And always ask to speak to an attorney. If the police are going to come and talk to you about something, you might as well have a professional who does it every day, twenty four hours a day handle these things. Then try to handle it on yourself, because you can't. All right, No one has successfully talked their way out of a conviction by talking about themselves. That's why people hire attorneys, especially ones who do it for a living all day long. And don't hire a real estate lawyer for a criminal case. Hire a criminal defense lawyer. Because I see, I see that also. You know what that made me think of one thing? When someone is being detained right or is the question of be entertained right? How does that actually? You know? Because someone can say okay, well you know, pull over, get out the car, and I guess you're supposed to say, well, I'm not being entertained. Am I being arrested? What is the formatal? What do you say one should do when that happens, if they're being pulled over, if someone is potentially stopping them, how should they react? Comply and keep your mouth shut. That's the best advice. Don't resist the arrest or, don't resist entertainment, whatever it is, but don't answer any If it's a driving situation, all right, So it's a little different because again, we have what's called a license to drive. We don't have the right to drive. So if we have a license to drive, we have to follow the rules of the road, which include not driving drunk. So if the police officer wants to do a sobriety a field sobriety test on you, you should really comply. There are times where I tell people not to comply. I have to bend drunk they are, but you know, in general, you should comply. It probably won't help your case because they think you're drunk anyway, but at least it's being videoed and we could watch it afterwards and we could cross examine the police officer on it if it's questionable. Right, he missed three steps, No, he really missed only two steps. Here's the video, and you could win those cases as a defense attorney. So comply, but don't answer questions except for pedigree. Like I said before, now you all right, I got you spart, but I just want to finish this part. So in terms of being videoed right, what are the civilian rights to video? You know some say, well I heard a cops say you can't video me, put your phone down, or I take the phone. What are the rights to someone who feels that in order to protect themselves they must video in occurrence? So you're a lot of video. What's happening to you? There's no question about it. The police officers video on it usually because he's got his body cam on, so he's video video it as well. The question is where are your hands? You know, the police officer always wants to see your hands. And if they need to put your hands behind your back becuse they're arresting you, what are you gonna do with the camera? What are you gonna do with the phone? So it can't interfere with the arrest or the detainment process, but you are allowed a video of course. My last question, Saul, is what about my mirandum rights? Do you have to have the officer read them. If they don't, are they compliant? What's there? Is that still something that needs to be said by an officer if you're being arrested or not. So, Miranda rights only comes in if there's going to be what's called custodial interrogation. So you need two things. One is you need to be in custody and how is that defined? That's the find is I am not free to leave. Okay, I don't have to be in handcuffs. I don't have to be in a locked office. I don't have to be in a jail. I'm not free to leave, and I reasonably believe I'm not free to leave. So for police officers with guns are surrounding me, I reasonally believe I can't leave. So now I'm in custody, and then there has to be something called interrogation. Interrogations very simple. It's a question, okay. So even a question of you know, it might not be as subtle as you know, did you rob the bank? It could be something as were you on you know, Smith Street at two o'clock in the morning last night. That's a question, okay. So if there's gonna because still interrogating. Beforehand, there must be Miranda rights, Miranda warnings, and the Miranda warnings are like we also on TV. You have the right to remain silent, and I tell people please use it. If you can't afford attorney, one will be appointed to you. It won't be appointed to you until you're in court. So if you need one beforehand, you better have one in your back pocket. Okay. And anything you say Canada will be used against you, and it will be used against you. Anything you say, whether you say I wasn't on Smith Street or I was on Smith Street, it will be used against you. So you're better off not saying a word except for I want to attorney, and do not answer questions. All right, So Miranda warnings. But if the police officer doesn't want to ask you any questions, just wants to take you into custody, they don't have to they don't have to mirandize you, they don't have to give you your your rights because they don't have no plans on asking you any questions. And when they don't plan on asking you any questions, they take you, They put you in the police car, they take you to the precinct. They think apprins you, the photograph you, they ask you pedigree information, and they process you. And that was the whole thing. They're not asking you questions. There's no investigation going on. I have a question, A find a question as well. What advice could you offer to some of I guess some of the people from I guess maybe immigrant communities, those that are you know, being maybe being stopped or or or just in fear of being stopped. Because now we have some cases where defendants are not showing up to court, you know, because of fear of being going in and not coming out and those things like that, and now it's like being stopped. You have some law agencies, law enforcement agencies where they are wearing masks and they're not necessarily complying with those uh federal law enforcement standards and regulations that they should be doing. What advice would you offer to these you know, two people in general who are just in fear of their safety and you know, just being apprehended. Yeah, the the immigrant community is a lot of more education and they need to understand what their rights are if they are on the street by somebody from ICE, let's say, or Homeland Security, whatever it is. They don't have to answer questions. They're in America, whether you're a citizens, is in with a green card, whether you don't have a green card, you're in the country. You're in this country, and you have rights like everyone else in this country. And that is they remain silent. So if somebody stops you and says where are you from, to look at them and say, I don't want to speak to you. And if you want to speak to me, call my lawyer. And I believe the immigrant community really should get together and hire one or two lawyers. That everyone should have their card, their phone number and say this is my lawyer, whatever's name is. You know, this is my lawyer. Call them. I'm not discussing any of you, all right. And if I'm free to leave, I'm going to walk away now. And if I'm not free to leave and you're detaining me, what's your reason? What's your reason to detain me? You know, go ahead and detain me, but I'm talking to you. They have to have reasonable suspicion to stop people, and they have to have a reason to detain people. And most of the time they don't get that reason until after you open your mouth and you talk to them and you say, you know, I'm from another country and I don't have a green cat in it. You know, well here illegally, bam, turn around, But let's put on handcuffs, you know, And that's what happens because they don't know their rights and their right to remain silent is a right with everyone in this country. And you know, whether you're a citizen or not, you know, that's it. You have a right to remain silent. Don't give them a reason to put you in handcuffs. And education is such an important thing, especially with the immigrant community, especially with what's going on in terms of communities where ice is coming off of vans, like you said, with masks on, which is ridiculous to me, okay, that they're covering up their faces okay, and stopping people randomly and questioning them okay, what what? What? What? Because the person's brown, where's the person's black? You're questioning them? All right? Why am I not being questioned when I walk around the street. Why don't you just stop me? You know? Why am I different? I'm saying human being as the other people? You know, why why wasn't I questioned? And it's wrong? But the people need to be educated, not to talk to them. Just be quiet. Stop talking. People talk too much. Stop talking, stop talking and stop talking and talk about a lawyer. All right, I'm gonna get to this chat real quick before we end, because a few people have any some questions. I'm not familiar with this. Maybe you do counselor, but do you handle p c r A cases? I have findley letter question. I'm not sure what that means. Are you familiar with that? No, I'm not familiar with that. Sorry, all right, no doubt. Uh turning, let me see it was another one in here. Yeah, she was talking about restorative justice. We talked a little bit about something and she needed said just comply and pretty much right, just just be quiet, you got it? Yeah? You know, I never understood, right, the idea of fighting the police when you're like that, you know, because it just gives them a reason to do more, or you know, to to you know, be more aggressive, to say that, oh you did this, so now I got a reason to shoot you or something like that. You know, just apply X for attorney. That's my belief. And uh, yeah, you know, we have to just do better in the community. I think I do think, however, that if law enforcement had a better relationship with the community, a lot of that wouldn't be happening. And it's because you have two forces literally that don't like the most police already, which all police aren't bad apples, right, it's only a few. But the perception of the police that a lot of community have is that they're already bad, right, And so if you have these two forces, that's saying, Okay, well, I'm already profiling this person. You're a black guy, you got a black heat on in a red jacket, then you must be And I'm already saying on your out, well you're the police, You're gonna already profile me. You have two opposing forces hitting, you know, hitting, bumping heads from day one, and so I think that there needs to be in order. And I think this is what Monica was kind of saying, there needs to be this idea of restorative justice. How can we fix the issues that we have had between law enforcement and the community. How can we fix that inform better relationships? And I guess I'll end with that question with you, counselor, what do you think could happen to restore better communications, better relations between law enforcement and the community. We need we need more community. What's called community policing, where the police officers become part of the community. Not just that they're walking into the bagel store, the coffee shops and getting free donuts and know who I know, who the name are the counter is. They need to know who the customers are. Walk into that bagel store, walk into that coffee shop, walk into the donut shop, get your free coffee, and talk to the customers and say, Hi, my name is Officer Jones. What's your name? Oh, you're you're a Moniker, your Louise, You're John, You're Where do you live? What's going on? You know? You know? You know? Do you like playing baseball? What team? Who you're rooting for in sports? You know? I have four kids, two daughters and two sons. What do you have? Community, Make make it real, not this power that is above you. It's an equal person. It's a regular equal person. Whether the person's a police officer, fireman, garbage man, or whatever it is. Okay, it's an equal person. Newmanize the police. Make them part of the community so that somebody on the street at an eleven year old or ten year old knows. Oh, the name of the officer over there, he's He's Michael Jones. I know who he is. He's a nice guy. He talks to me when I'm waiting for the bus. You know what what happens is these police officers are in cars. They're not looking to talk to anyone. They're just looking to drive around and run the calls and that's it. And they don't care about who the people, who the actual people are. They're too busy with what's going on on the radio, you know, in terms of radio calls where they have to get to a call rather than saying, you know what, I have time now there is no radio call. Let me go ahead and meet the people. Let me walk into a school. Let all the students of the school know that I'm the police officers who patrols these five blocks that your school is on. That I'm the police officer who patrols your neighborhood. And by the way, if i'm not, let me introduce you to who is I want you to know the name. I start with names. What is the name of the police officer and your I'm sure that none of you know the name of the police officer who patrols your neighborhood. None of us know. I happen to know because I talk to them. I see them, I talk to them. I know who they are. Okay, I know them by face. They know me by face. I tell you to watch my house when I'm walking when I'm going away for a weekend. But I'm very unique, I'm very different. People need to know who the police officers are and they canmmunity and nothing's wrong. By the way, it doesn't have to be just the police officers talking to the community. It could be the other way around. The community could walk into the precincts and say, Hi, I live on Main Street. I'd like to know what the names of the police officers to throw my neighborhood are. I'd like to meet them. I'd like to say a lord to them. You know, maybe I want them to come into the house if they need a couple of coffee, If they need to use the bathroom, they could use my house. They could use my apartment. They should know that I am a friendly person and if they need to use the bathroom, knock on my door anytime. You can use my bathroom. Wow. Fantastic, excellent, excellent, excell I really appreciate you, counsel for coming on. One thing we say on the show again is once you come to the show, your friend to the show. So you're always welcome to come back. But I want to be you one, especially if you're in the New York area. How can someone get in contact? Would you find you? If they get pulled over? They need to reach you real quick? How can they contact you? So the easiest way is to go to my website. It's www dot Beaninfeldlaw dot com. So that's my last name as you see on the screen law at the end of it, dot com. You could find me on all my social media is that at being in Feled Law. I'm on Facebook, I'm on Instagram, I'm on YouTube, and you can always call my office and you could be directed to me through my service anytime. I love to talk to you, you know what, real quick before you in. Is there one thing? Is there a misconception that people have as a relates to law or you know, you know law enforcement. Is there one misconception that you know that people tend to have as it relates to just their rights. As their own rights. Yeah, people believe that they don't have any rights and people think that they're smarter than the police, and people think that they could challenge the police. And you mentioned before like how come people, you know, start up with the police rather than just comply. And the answer is very simple. It's a human nature. You think that I did something wrong. I know I didn't do anything wrong. So I'm going to proof to you I didn't do anything wrong by not complying with what you want me to do. That's not the right attitude to have. Let's deal with that later on down the line. We can even deal with that in a civil lawsuit against the police officer later on the line. But the first thing too is comply and stf you like the. To shut up, be quiet. Well, that's why I tell people. Shut up a call, shut up a call. Saw All right, we gotta talk to you a little later, you know, see what you can send, maybe put some links and stuff and we'll talk so people can get in contact with you there in that area. We really appreciate you for coming on the show, and uh yeah, we'll be reaching out again. Thanks for coming on and we really appreciate you pleasure. Thank you so much. It's great seeing everyone. You too as well. All right, y'all, So don't go anywhere. We got more coming up. I'm your boy, Charles Gregg. With the beautiful classy Lady Sparko and the beautiful Lauren. And my brother so all being and Feld. Make sure y'all reach out. Y'all will be right back after this