Should You Talk to the Cops?

Every day, throughout the United States, a scene similar to this one plays out. Some guy is driving around in his car. Maybe he's been drinking, maybe not. As he's driving around he looses control of his vehicle. He hits a tree, or he hits a barrier, or he just drives off the road and can't get the car back on the road. No one is around. No one saw what happened. Guy is scared. Guy goes home. Car is found. Cops are called. Cops want to know what happened. What should guy do?

This situation is a lot like the Tiger Woods situation. Like I said, it plays out every day all over the country (trust me, I'm a lawyer - I get calls just like this all the time). The smart ones, like Tiger Woods, and some of my clients, call me before either the cops call them or they decide if they are going to talk to the cops to find out what they should do. They want to know not necessarily what the "right" thing to do is, but what they should do to minimize the harm that comes to them. Something everyone in this situation would do.

So, should you talk to the cops in this situation? Definitely, 100% not. Nothing good is going to come out of that conversation, unless you consider good to be criminal charges against you (hit and run most likely). The cops want to talk to you so they can get enough information to charge you with a crime, not so they can know what happened. That is what cops do - they try to find people that have made bad decisions and punish them.

The best clients of mine call me before they talk to the cops or before they are called by the cops to find out what to do. And the best clients then follow my advice and do what I suggest - tell the officer you won't be answering any of his questions and if he'd like to discuss the matter further he can contact me, his attorney, to figure out a good time to meet. They'll never call me, because they know I won't let you talk to them.

In the end, the best decision is to always keep your mouth shut. There are a couple of saying that can remind you of this mantra. First, "How'd the fish get caught? He opened his mouth." And second, "nobody talks, everybody walks." Remember those two sayings if you ever find yourself in a jam.