Its Alright To Tell Police No

Hey, everybody, this is Christina Williams with Just Criminal Law. And today I wanted to talk to you about a case that gives a real life example to some of our more popular videos. Specifically, what do the cops not want you to know? Or what should you do if you come into contact with law enforcement? And I brought in David Mann.
He's a legal consultant today to talk to us a little bit about one of the cases that he's reviewed with us and get into the details of of how we can apply some of these videos to real life. Hi, David Mann. Hi there, Christina. Yeah, this is a really interesting case where a drunk driving incident went all the way to the Wyoming Supreme Court. And this was to decide whether an officer had broken a Wyoming Citizen's Fourth Amendment rights. Correct. Against illegal search and seizure. Yeah. So just a little background from what I read on this case is that there was a car that was crashed. An officer found this crash car and kind of pieced together. Who owned the car? Found that person's address. Went to that person's house. Found tire tracks in the snow, indicating that she probably had been dropped off. And then he is sitting in the driveway, I assume, near the house and sees a man outside the house and then begins to talk to that man. So that man turns out to be the husband of the owner of the car. So you take it from there. This is a critical moment in this case. And what happens right there at that moment? Sure. So Mr. Hawken was outside. He was going to go check out what had happened. He was on his way back to his wife's car and the officer said, Hey, Mr. Hawken, I'd like to talk to Mrs. Hawken. And the officer tells a little white lie and says, Hey, I've talked to the person who dropped your wife off and I need to talk to her. And Mr. Hawken says, okay, well, hold on. I will go inside and get her. So he walks to the house and the officer follows him uninvited into his house. Mr. Hawken says, Wait right here. They're in the mudroom and he goes in to get Ms.. Hawken and the two have a discussion. The officer hears it, get it heated, and he yells, Hey, Mr. Hawken, come back to the mudroom. So Mr. Hawken, you know, follows the officer's orders, goes back to the mudroom. And Mrs. Hawken follows him. At that point in time, the officer says, Mrs. Hawken, come with me to my car. I need to talk to you about the car accident. And so she obeys him, goes to his car and gets arrested for DUI. Okay. So at that point, this is a really interesting case because in a conventional DUI stop, the police officer would have taken her out of the car and done a breathalyzer test. And all this sort of happened in the space of a few minutes by the side of the road. But because of all the rest of this, it got all spread out over time. And this moment that you that you referred to, where Mr. Harkin doesn't really say, hey, you can come into my house, he just kind of vaguely starts walking in that direction. And the officer just follows in walks in that moment. At that point, what what is so significant about that moment? Why is that so important in this case? Well, it was a bit of a gray area for the judge that heard the matter. And the judge that heard the matter here in Campbell County said, well, I think there's some implied consent there because Mr. Hawken goes to the House and, you know, he doesn't tell the officer to stay outside and and the officer just walks in and the Supreme Court said, no, that's that's not how it works. Does not implied consent. You in this sort of situation when you're walking into a citizen's home, you're going to need a warrant. And if you don't have a warrant, you're going to need consent, meaning you're going to have to ask, can I come in now? And he didn't he didn't ask the question, can I come in? And so he didn't receive an answer, yes, you can come in. And so because he didn't get had didn't have a warrant and didn't have permission. What does that mean about everything that happened after that point? Well, everything that happened after that point, we are looking at, was there a violation of Mrs. Hawken's Fourth Amendment right to privacy? By becoming. Educated. You can protect yourself and your rights if you find yourself in a situation where you're being questioned by the police or you've been placed under arrest, tell the police you don't want to discuss your day and let them know you want to talk to a lawyer. Then contact Just Criminal Law by clicking the link in the description. You can call, text or chat with a member of my team any time, day or night. If you found this video helpful, there are many more on our website at JustCriminalLaw.com. You only get one shot at justice, so make yours count.