Better Call Saul Wrapped Up a Few Weeks Ago

Better Call Saul wrapped up a few weeks ago. With it goes an almost weekly reminder to every viewer to never talk to the police without a lawyer present. Criminal defense attorneys say, write, text, IM, tweet, signal, and probably TikTok that simple message almost continually. We needed Saul and Mike to make the point in another medium and make it often.

The first we ever saw of Saul Goodman, in the second season of Breaking Bad, he was admonishing a would-be client he finds sitting in an interrogation with a baby-faced detective:

“What'd you say to baby face? Did you say anything stupid? By ‘anything stupid,’ I mean anything at all.”

A recurring theme – there’s a great scene in an interrogation room in the first episode of Better Call Saul where Mike’s dialogue is one word, repeated over and over in a deadpan voice: “Lawyer.”

It’s easier to give this free but vital piece of legal advice than it is for people to follow it. I get that, I know my colleagues get it as well: it’s antithetical to not engage with someone so keen to ‘just chat’ with you. It seems rude. It’s uncomfortable (unless you’re Mike, who seems to revel in it). You’re afraid they’ll think you’re guilty because you don’t talk. In the words of Jimmy McGill, “It’s getting arrested that makes people look guilty, even the innocent ones.”

Don’t talk without a lawyer. Period.

A lesson that Alexander Garrison did not apply late on a hot Saturday night in Rockville, Connecticut a few years ago. Garrison was with a group of friends, hanging out, eating, drinking. Everyone got drunk, words were exchanged, a push led to a shove which led to a punch which led to a knife wound(s).

Luckily, the fight occurred a few hundred yards for a large hospital, the walking wounded dragged themselves there for treatment. Garrison had a broken nose and a concussion. The victim had non-life-threatening stab wounds that he made life threatening by making no effort to stop the bleeding – indeed, he sat on a sidewalk polishing off a beer while he lost about a third of his blood volume.

While Garrison was being treated, while he was sobering up, while he was hooked up to an IV drip, the police came in and out of his room continuously over 4 ½ hours – three, four, five, at a time, at least two of them in street clothes, unarmed, with no IDs.

Just for a chat. Just to get his side of the story. No he wasn’t under arrest. No he wasn’t being held, he just had to wait for the hospital to discharge him . . . so while we’re waiting let’s talk about the jerk you stabbed. No, this isn’t official, that’s why we haven’t Mirandized you. Just a chat.

Garrison didn’t catch on until around 2:30 am when he said enough. By then, the detectives wove enough of his statements together to charge him with first degree assault.

For reasons that only his public defender knows, he waived a jury trial and opted for the judge to reach a verdict. He was quickly found guilty. Even quicker, claims of self-defense were dismissed. He got 7 years.

It took four years and three courts to reverse the conviction.

Lesson(s): it’s never ‘just a chat’ and you need a lawyer.