Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:05] Speaker B: Hey everybody, it's Lacey and I'm Lauren and we're here for another episode of the Llamas podcast.
[00:00:11] Speaker A: And today we're going to kind of talk about misconceptions in TVs and movies. Just kind of an overview of things. A lot of times happen wrong, both civilly and criminally in cases. But I will tell you, both of us today are a little tired. I was in NYC for the weekend and I walked more steps than ever. And I know you can't tell it from here, but I'm only 5ft tall and I went with someone who was about 58 and the other person was 6 1. So both of them were walking very quickly and I was running the whole time. And Lacy just got back from a cruise with her law firm. So we're both here and struggling. But today I do have the question I'm going to ask Lacey and they this is kind of something she's seen in Mexico. Also. My paralegal who's from Albania has told me about this. In other countries they don't have to have prescriptions to go and get medicine. Like you can go get Xanax, you can go get, you know, got a sinus infection, you can go get that Z Pack or whatever with no prescription, just walking into a pharmacy. So I don't think most of us are worried about if you have that Z Pack or maybe, you know, that maybe some headache relief medicine, stuff like that. But what about people who go and load up on things like oxy and Xanax and things that people want and they have it and come back here over the border from Mexico or you're coming in from a different country that allows us. What's the legality of that? Because it was legal to purchase it where you were bringing it in.
[00:01:43] Speaker B: So one thing I learned on my cruise. So we did a guided tour when we were in Cozumel, Mexico, and Ricky was our tour guide and he was fantastic. So he actually told me or our group he can't legally buy that stuff without a prescription. So any of us in our group from America could, could walk up and it's in. It's not just pharmacies, Lauren. You go and you can buy chocolate and T shirts, souvenirs, and the medicines right there beside is as we went to the beach, they had a, a popup shop like on the beach. It was insane.
But yeah. So Ricky said that because he is from Mexico, he's from Cozumel, he would actually need a prescript purchase that medication there only we could legally purchase it.
But just because you legally purchase something in another country is not going to make it legal here in our country. So if you go on a cruise or if you fly to a resort in, in Mexico or another country and you see Xanax listed and, or anything like that, you, if you bring it to America and you get caught, that is a crime. That is in South Carolina, that is going to be possession of a controlled substance here. What we have found is unless we can show proof of a prescription from a doctor, they typically don't dismiss those charges.
So, you know, it would not be legally possessed here even though you legally purchase. There's a difference there. And another good example of that is between states. Right? So we're seeing many states legalize marijuana.
I have represented clients who were charged with possession of marijuana, but they have a card, like a medical card from Florida where they're allowed to purchase marijuana there, or they're from Colorado. So you know, they traveled it, traveled with it here for whatever reason and then they're arrested for possessing in South Carolina because it's illegal here.
That prescription for marijuana is not going to be valid in South Carolina. Um, so it's important to know like, you know, if you are traveling between states and you're in a state where you can legally purchase marijuana either with a card or without, when you're traveling through different states, make a note because there may be somewhere it's illegal to have that. You know, just like my old boss would always look at the gun laws, you know, whether a gun had to be secured in some states, not secured. Ignorance of the law is not a defense. So, you know, if you're traveling with these things or you go to Mexico or another country, make sure you're aware of the laws that you're going to bring it into because you could be committing a crime.
[00:04:21] Speaker A: One question I have as a follow up, I was kind of thinking about that when you mentioned prescription. So say you are like from a different country and you're coming into the US and you do have a prescription for Xanax or whatever, and you come in or Oxy, one of those type controlled substances, but you're from another country, but your doctor has given you a prescription. So as long as you have that prescription, does it matter that it's not a US doctor, but a foreign doctor?
[00:04:50] Speaker B: I don't think it matters.
I don't think it, it doesn't for the statute. Right, because that's not illegally possessing it. You're legally possessing it with that prescription.
Do I trust that a lot of officers are going to be able to look at a prescription potentially in another language or, you know, of another country and trust it? That's shaky, right?
I could see an arrest being made. I could see it potentially getting dismissed though, if the prosecutor deems that prescription as valid and does not find that they, you know, illegally possess a controlled substance because they have a prescription for exactly the substance that they have.
So I would just say definitely be cautious. If you are traveling into South Carolina and you have a prescription, keep it in the bottle it came in, in that whatever pharmacy you got it filled out, whatever it came with, keep that on you, keep your prescription on you and just do whatever to CYA to make sure that you can show that you are. You are allowed to possess that, that a doctor wrote a prescription for it.
[00:05:55] Speaker A: Go back to our kind of topic today, legal inaccuracies in movies. And I think the one that I really want to talk about at first is Legally Blonde. So in Legally Blonde, we all know that she's a law student and she is, you know, I've been picked on all this type of stuff. But she does get on the list for to be. There's a trial going on and in this trial a woman has been accused. They're representing the woman that was accused of killing her husband. We all know that she was getting liposuction during the time of the killing, but she didn't want to give up her alibi because she was a fitness instructor. And L. Woods, the main character from Legally Blonde, says, you know, she wouldn't kill her husband because she had endorphins and endorphins make people happy, blah, blah, blah. So anyways, we get to the trial and the woman fires her attorney right then and there. Typically a judge is not going to let that fire a new attorney come in like that. That is over dramatic. You usually, if you're letting go of your counsel, the judge has to approve of it. And most of the time they will let the counsel off if you have somebody else. But it's not just like you're fired. Get up. There is a lot of paperwork, like putting notices of appearance in and then the part of l being a law student, I am sure there would have to be a lot of paperwork put in to show that she could practice under this, under the suit, the supervision of her boyfriend at that time, pretty much.
But I think the biggest thing that gets me is how she's quite questioning the wife, the stepdaughter. Wait, she is questioning the Daughter of the deceased person. And on the stand, she keeps asking her all these questions like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then all of a sudden she said she was in the shower and she goes, well, why were you in the shower? I couldn't hear. I was washing my hair, all this stuff. And then it's like, l has this huge light bulb moment because she had said she got a perm. And we have that whole thing about, well, if you got a perm, you knew you couldn't get in the for 24 hours because of the ammonium th glad or whatever she says. And it's like this whole big reveal with this whole big, like, smoking gun situation that, oh, my gosh, this all came out in trial.
That never happens. We do not have a smoking gun situation in trial because beforehand you are going to be given discovery. No matter if you're in a civil case or a criminal case, there is discovery. It's done a little different between civil and criminal. As far as, like, with civil, we have to request, like, interrogatories, depositions, all that stuff from the opposing party. They send it in. I know in the criminal world, y'all are given, like, pretty much boxes of discovery from the prosecution. They're mandated to do to do it. And most of the time, you are not going to have a witness on the stand a lot of times without knowing their statements, without knowing what they're doing. You probably have done things like depositions to where you've learned everything about the case.
[00:09:05] Speaker B: We don't get depositions.
[00:09:07] Speaker A: In the civil world, you get deposition.
[00:09:09] Speaker B: In criminal law, you do not get to do depositions. So sometimes it's not uncommon to get some surprises because we don't get depositions. But to the point, it solves the whole case. No, no.
[00:09:23] Speaker A: It's like most of your case is really out there before you ever even go to trial because of discovery. Like, you've been given videos, you've been given statements, all this type stuff. So you know what's coming up. So there is rarely this moment of the smoking gun in any litigation. You have known a lot of this ahead of time. And it is just, I think obviously in TVs and movies it's done for dramatic effect, but in the real courtroom, typically, it's pretty boring for the most part.
[00:09:59] Speaker B: I did have.
I was found. My client was found not guilty. So she was not a victim. She was the alleged victim at the time tell me during cross examination that she was in a relationship with Keanu Reeves. And I found that very Entertaining. So sometimes we do have some entertaining moments.
[00:10:19] Speaker A: Witnesses that are. But overall, you're never gonna have that.
[00:10:23] Speaker B: Yeah. And that did help win the case. That, you know, because of course, I wrap everything together. The fact that she says she's, you know, trapped in South Carolina, she has no money to leave, and she doesn't want to be here, but yet she's in a relationship with Keanu Reeves on Instagram. That calls credibility in a question which helped me win the case because, you know, the judge didn't find her credible on other. You know, because it was a he said, she said case. If they believed her, a crime was committed. If they believed him, they believed it wasn't. So, you know, you have. You do have some. Some interesting moments like that. But no, there was no smoking gun where, oh, my gosh, there was ring camera in the living room that caught the whole thing, and no one knew about it. Because if that happens, then there's going to be a mistrial, because we are now have what's called a Brady violation. If the state possesses evidence and they don't turn it over to the defense and try to introduce it, that's a Brady violation. And the judge can either throw the whole case out based on the violation, or they can declare a mistrial.
[00:11:27] Speaker A: Yeah. So all that stuff that pretty much anything you're going to present at trial as evidence has to be turned over ahead of time. You can't just all of a sudden. Or if you do want to bring something new in, you have to all agree to it, or the judge gets to decide on its probative value.
But it's just not like that. And I think another big misconception we see is in shows like Law and Order svu, which I watched, you know, until Stabler left, and it wasn't the same.
[00:11:59] Speaker B: Still good, though. I still watched it.
[00:12:01] Speaker A: In a lot of situations, you see these things where, for one, the cops are just. It's a TV show, so they're really just focused in on this one case, and that's not real life. There's tons of cases going on at one time. But I think the biggest thing is the prosecutors are not there with the cops going out to the crime scenes all the time. It's not like you saw, like, Casey Novak work hand in hand with Olivia and Elliot. Like, that's really not a lot of it. Pretty much a lot of it is just here, we've collected the evidence, do what you need to do with it at trial kind of thing. Obviously, they're going to prep them if they're witnesses and stuff like that. But it's not this whole big come together to solve a crime.
[00:12:48] Speaker B: And to add on to that in Law and Order and other shows that we see a lot now, it's very different from like Matlock and stuff like that. A lot of shows that we see right now involving crime are very anti defense.
And this sometimes even in the podcast. There's a podcast, a true, true crime podcast I quit listening to because of how much they hated on defense lawyers.
That's in our legal community, right? That is abnormal too.
We may feel some type of way. And like I was flying back from Ohio a couple weeks ago and the person beside me was chat with me and she found out my job. She said, oh, I can't do that. I have too much of a bleeding heart.
I, I have a very much bleeding heart, which is why I do this. But you know, in these shows, it's like they had you took on this case. How dare you? How dare you represent someone who has done this horrific crime to a child or something like that in our legal community, you don't see that. You know, I've never been judged by a case I took Usually, you know, I think it's very common for prosecutor. If they get one of my cases, oh my gosh, I got Lacy on the other side side. I know we're going to have negotiations. I know I'm going to be hit with mitigation. You know, if there's a drug problem, I know she's going to have them in treatment. Like, you know, I have a reputation of things I do in cases and there's a lot of things that prosecutors look forward to. They know I'm going to answer my emails. They know I'm going to come in, you know, ready to do my job and, and do it to the fullest extent. They don't judge me even if my client did something horrific. Right. They know that I'm going to turn over what I'm required to turn over and they know I expect the same from them if it's exculpatory material, which is material to prove innocence or incriminating material. They know I'm going to look at my case file and they respect the work I do.
So I never walk into a courtroom and feel judged or shamed on a case I'm representing. Usually they're like, okay, I know I'm going to be able. I know who's on the other side. I know what I got to do. And it's a mutual Respect.
It's not, you know, we're not sneaking in evidence and, you know, intimidating witnesses. And, you know, there's some crazy things. I see defense lawyers doing all these shows that's not happening. That's just. It's just not.
[00:15:21] Speaker A: I think, like, realistically, like here at the Spartanburg, like, bar events, it's usually the prosecutors and the public defenders and the criminal defense attorneys that go to most of them, and they all get along for the most. I mean, there's jerks on every side of something. They're like regular people, but there is usually no hatred. A lot of times people start out as a prosecutor here and then go into private practice on the defense side because you get your experience and then you want to open your own firm. So, like, I think it's the same way in the civil world. Like, there's definitely attorneys we don't like and that when we say their name on occasionally. But, like, that's the same as anything else. There are so many attorneys we get along with, we enjoy working with, and we just advocate the best hand for our clients. But it does. It's not personal that we attack the other side on any of their. You attack on the merits of the case, not the personal stuff in there.
[00:16:24] Speaker B: And it does happen. Don't get me wrong. It does happen. I know there was a case in Lexington and Sean Kent was on the case, and I can't remember what exactly the quote was in the article, but I think he essentially called the prosecutor racist. And, you know, Sean had taken some comments he had made as racism. So, you know, it does sometimes happen, but it's rare. You know, I know Sean, when you walk into a courtroom, you are going to see him speaking to prosecutors, shaking their hands, hugging them, asking them about, you know, their family or whatever. Like, he's so involved in our legal community. That is rare that that's going to happen. Same for me. If you see me going into a courtroom, you're going to see me talk to some of my prosecutor friends. Carson's one of our DUI prosecutors. He's great. Like, I know he's going to play fair. I can predict his offers, usually because I've just worked with him so long. But there was one prosecutor. I'm not going to name their name, and they're no longer here, but we did not like each other, and. And there were some nasty emails back and forth between the both of us. And that's the most ugly I've ever gotten with somebody, I think, in 10 years. And she probably has the same opinion of me, and I don't really care. So do those moments happen? Yes, but they are so rare. Whereas in TV shows, they make it seem like it's so normal.
[00:17:43] Speaker A: They did. They make it seem like you fight if you're on the plaintiff side versus the defendant side. Yeah, but just because we also get along as attorneys a lot of times on both sides, doesn't mean we don't fight as hard as we can and zealously advocate for our clients. I think, you know, you can be cordial. You can get along and still advocate. One other movie that comes to mind with all of this is the situation in Miracle on 34th Street.
This is the movie. It's one of my mom's favorite Christmas movies. I watched it all the time growing up. I'm talking about the new one, not the black and white one. I don't. I've never watched the black and white one, so I don't know. But in this one, at the end of the movie, it's like, is Santa Claus gonna go to jail? All this stuff. And in the middle of the courtroom, a little girl just walks up and hands the judge a dollar bill that says, in God we trust. And his whole. All of a sudden, everything changes. And he's like, we're not here to debate whether Santa exists or God exists. It's in the hearts and all that stuff in no case. And I think we all know this, but I think it kind of. You're not gonna have somebody that's not a part of the judge. The attorneys can't even approach the bench without asking requests to. May we approach to have, like, a sidebar conversation. You're definitely not going to have some little girl from the gallery coming up handing the judge. And even if that.
No judge is going to be like, well, I can just throw this case out because I want to right now. Case dismissed.
[00:19:14] Speaker B: Right.
[00:19:15] Speaker A: Judges have a lot of authority, but there would have had to been some motion to dismiss for this judge to be able to do that. And I think that's something people also don't realize. Judges don't just make decisions, I guess, sua sponte. They actually have, like, if you have a terrible case and you're on the other side and you know they have no causes of action, the judge just doesn't look at it and go, and I'm throwing it out, you have to make that motion to dismiss.
[00:19:44] Speaker B: Yeah, you have a motion is just, judge, will you. And if you don't ask, a judge just can't stay Step in for you.
Although I have seen pro se clients, like an officer didn't show up. So everything's. You know, every attorney is going to move to dismiss because they don't have the prosecuting officer on, like, a ticket or something. And even the pro se clients have to make the motion, but they don't know how to do it a lot of times. So the judge will be like, do you have a motion to make a motion that the attorney before you made?
Because they can't just say, okay, your case is dismissed. Officer's not here. The pro se person has to make the motion, but they'll coach them through it so that way they can make the motion, make the request to have it dismissed, and dismiss it.
[00:20:28] Speaker A: And I will say judges give a lot of leeway to pro se people because they want to make sure that they're given every opportunity. Like, I was in a probate court one time and the other person was pro se. And like this case, they had had six months to get an attorney, and they hadn't, and they were up for a hearing. Luckily, we settled it. But I know the judge was going to give a continuance because she was pro se and she was going to learn how to get an attorney. Even though I'd been months. I think overall, well, in another TV show like the Good Wife, there's not as much drama out there as all these TV shows make it seem like, yes, there's inner office drama for sure. People don't like each other. But I feel in your normal legal world, like things like the Good Wife and suits, where there's all these law firms conniving and hating each other, it's not real.
It's just made up. I think overall, when we watch law shows, we probably feel the same way as when doctors watch Grey's Anatomy. I think Grey's Anatomy, everything is true and accurate. And I feel like doctors probably look at it and they're like, oh, my gosh, this sucks. So I think we have to take everything with a grain of salt because real courtrooms are not as full of drama. They are way more structured, and you've had a lot of time leading up to it. There's no just, oh, you're called into trial today. Now, you were put on the roster like a month ago. You know it's coming, right? It's just not as drama field.
[00:21:58] Speaker B: I will say one thing I wish we had that Law and Order has is their grand jury proceeding. So if you watch Law and Order, svu, they have the grand Jury proceeding coming up, right? And you see 12 people listening to testimony, and you see the defendant there, you see the defense attorney there, and they're cross examining some of these witnesses, right. To determine if there's probable cause to actually go to a trial. Right? So if in every case you have the right, a grand jury has to indict, and that means they have to find probable cause. You know, enough evidence exists to move this case forward. Essentially, in our grand jury proceedings in South Carolina, I don't get to go.
My client doesn't get to go. Any witnesses that we have to, you know, combat their witness statements, they don't get to go. It's a secret meeting that the cop goes to, the prosecutor knows about, and that's it. So, for example, I had an email from a prosecutor two weeks ago, and my client's charged with a lesser crime and she wants to indict it for something higher because of other elements she believes exist. She goes, when this gets indicted, I'll let you know. An indictment should never be when. Right. That means it's not fair. She said, when the grand jury finds probable cause, essentially not if. So when I replied, I said, when you send this to the grand jury, I am demanding that you include the evidence that is, you know, that exists for why the officer charged a lesser misdemeanor crime, not this felony. You know, the officer thought this, the officer thought this, and I listed that and demanded that she present it. Will I know if she did or not? No. No. And I don't get to go and make sure that exculpatory material is presented.
And that's what upsets me, is that in law and order, it is a more fair system for the grand jury proceeding. And I think that's one of the reasons our cases are so bogged down here in South Carolina, too, is because we are when it gets indicted, not if our grand juries aren't weeding anything out because they're not hearing anything from the other side. So that's one thing, you know, TV drama. I just wanted to point out as we wrap up, that I wish we had in South Carolina that the TV does one.
[00:24:12] Speaker A: Is that like a state by state thing?
[00:24:15] Speaker B: It is, it is, yeah. Other states do have a more fair system where the defense is allowed. There's a few other things that make trials so much more fair in other states that. Sorry for the background noise that we don't have. So, yes, that is specifically South Carolina. Our running joke is a ham sandwich would be indicted here in South Carolina.
[00:24:41] Speaker A: Speaking of that, I did have a client. Well, not a client of mine. I have heard a story of a client getting charged with assault in the criminal sense because he threw a ham sandwich at somebody else.
As I've heard, that's not mine because I don't recruit, but I had heard that about ham sandwich being thrown and just kind of wrapping up. I will say if you do watch Law and Order SVU and you see there's a lot of crime that happens in Central Park. It is true. As my New Yorker, now New Yorker friend took me on a tour of Central park, they found a body there. They had. There was a body washed up from here. So that is one of the accuracies, I believe is there's a lot of murder out there.
[00:25:25] Speaker B: So leading into our book series that's coming up, you know, I think this is. This kind of episode is why I. These things are why I really wanted to go into this. Because talking about these TV shows, they always did it right. And the cops do a great job in svu. They always know who is guilty and they get mad at the defense. And I think that perception is just so ingrained in our society now, which is why I think you see people get convicted of crimes they didn't commit. Even when the police are lying, the defense has proven that they're lying. We have DNA evidence to show that they're lying and a jury still convicts. It's because we have grown up watching pro state TV shows instead of neutral balance TV shows. So make sure you're following our podcast.
We're going to dive into more of those things that we see in the book Framed by John Grisham and Jim McCloskey. So just wanted to tag our series that's coming up and tie it in with what we were just talking about with these crime shows.
[00:26:35] Speaker A: Yeah, definitely download the book because that will be coming up near the end of March. We're going to start that. So definitely it's 10 stories. I think it's only like 350 pages, so it's not a hard read. You definitely have time to still get it read. It's on Kindle. It isn't on Kindle Unlimited, but it's only like six bucks, so definitely get it. Join us and follow us and share our posts. If you like anything or send us a DM letting us know what you want to hear about.
[00:27:02] Speaker B: Yep. All right, I'll see you next week.
[00:27:04] Speaker A: Have a great day. Bye.
