The best free advice you can ever get is this: Hire a lawyer. People take bad situations and make them much worse by not being proactive and getting an attorney involved early in their case. If you think or suspect that an arrest is imminent, you should call this office immediately. If that isn't possible, it is important that you do not make an already bad situation worse. The more of the following things you can do, the better your chances that I can help you later.
- Do not resist arrest or flee.
- Do not be rude to the officer, no matter how rude they are to you.
- Do not provide any information other than your correct name, DOB and social security number.
- Do not submit to any search of yourself, your belongings, your automobile, or your home, even if the police tell you they are going to search anyway (as they likely will).
- If possible, use your cell phone to photograph and/or record as much of your encounter as you can. Use my iPhone app from iTunes if you can.
- Do not engage in any conversation with anyone while inside a police car. Those are usually audio and/or video recorded. Police cars aren't private.
- If you are suspected of driving under the influence, do not submit to any "Field Sobriety Tests", nor any chemical tests of your blood, breath or urine.
- Do not make any statments to police.
- Call this office as soon as you can.