Top True Crime Attorney Reveals The Good and Bad of The Industry I Scott Reisch DSH #401

of custody and the judge denied it wow and the client looked at me i'm feeling pretty good about myself about you know i just walk my

client second time on a homicide case i'm the man yeah the guy looked at me he goes man you can't even win a you can't even win a uh

a bond argument what kind of attorney are you damn and at that moment i was just like wow well that's over you know enjoy enjoy while it lasts

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And here's the episode.

All right, guys, we're here with Scott Reich.

We're talking true crime today.

How's it going, man?

It's going great.

Thanks for having me, Sean.

Absolutely.

We were just talking before this, and you flew in yourself, man.

I did.

I fly my own plane.

I've been flying for the last...

about 23 years, I guess.

And so now we finally got an all-weather airplane that can get us wherever we need to go.

Yeah.

Wow.

So you, you wear a lot of hats.

We were talking.

You're a YouTuber, podcaster, pilot.

You have the law firm, right?

Yeah, it's, it's busy.

Law firm is still my primary job, my day job, so to speak.

I do crime talk, the podcast during the day, and then, you know, have other ventures, you know, some restaurants and things like that as well.

And it's, yeah, it's busy.

Not enough hours in the day sometimes.

So when did Crime Talk start?

Because that's sort of how I found out about you.

You know, I started about five years ago.

And a friend of mine, Scott Richter, who has the big jackpot,

he came to me and said, hey,

you should really focus, you know, go live and do something about these cases that are going on.

At the time, it was a case called about Chris Watts.

He was an oil field worker guy, married.

You know, things are going well, it looked like, at least from her Facebook.

And, well, he went home one day after having an affair with a young lady that was a coworker.

He went home, killed the wife, and killed his two young children.

I remember this.

And that was kind of my thing.

You know, I said, my friend Scott, he comes to me, you should do this.

I'm like, man, nobody wants to hear what I have to say.

And that night I was watching something on the news.

And most local news is terrible, right?

They come on, they tell you the headline of the day.

They're going to tell you about the sports, the weather, and then they're going to give you the three-legged dog story about how they've saved and rescued this dog.

But they don't go into anything with any detail.

They don't explain what's really going on.

And most of the reporters don't know the difference between a preliminary hearing, a second advisement, and an arraignment and what really takes place.

So I said, okay, I'll do this.

I started to...

You know, I look back at some of my first podcasts and I'm just horrified of how bad they were.

That's relatable.

And you think, oh my gosh, I can't believe I did that.

But it was one of those things where, you know, you just, you have to go for it and just make changes as you go and make it better.

And so anyway, I remember I whipped out this quick video.

I sent it to my video editor guy at the time, and I was going on vacation in Mexico.

And it was, I think, titled The Email That Started It All.

And it was an email between Chris Watts and his then

girlfriend.

And all of a sudden I'm on vacation and I'm thinking, what is going on?

I kept getting all these alerts on my phone.

And just, you know, suddenly, you know, I had 2,000 subscribers.

Next thing, you know, I had 25,000 subscribers.

And it just kept going.

And I'm, and I literally thought at that moment, hey, there may be something to this YouTube thing.

And so that's where it started.

And at the time, you know, it would depend on what my schedule would be.

So I would do.

maybe one show a week or I would then I tried to edit myself and I would spend more time trying to create a thumbnail my my secretary would come in and she's like let me do that and she'd do it in 30 seconds.

I said, what am I doing?

So

basically I hired people to edit and do that so we could whip it out.

And so we do a daily show five days a week.

That's our goal.

That's awesome.

And I did one this morning before I

came here from the hotel room.

So

we try to get it out because the fans, and I thank my lucky stars every day.

We have some of the greatest fans.

But if I don't do a show, if I skip a couple of days because I'm in trial or something,

they'll call the office like, is is Scott okay?

Is everything okay?

We missed Scott.

We didn't get our news today.

Yeah.

So we try to keep it regular.

That's awesome.

Yeah.

That shows your commitment, 250,000 subscribers, man, in a short period of time, too.

You know, we've been trying.

It's, you know, it doesn't come overnight, that's for sure.

I mean, I wish it, I wish it did, but it doesn't.

So how often are you in trial?

Is that a common thing?

Yeah, I mean, for the last 30 years, I've been doing criminal defense.

So I

still have an active trial practice.

I have

anywhere between four to five attorneys at any given time that work for me as well.

But at the end of the day, a lot of people say, no, I want Scott to be my attorney.

So I have to go do the trial.

And,

you know, on average, I'm doing probably one felony trial per month.

Wow.

And it just depends.

Like, you know, March, I'm looking at it.

I've got a three-week human trafficking trial that I need to do.

So I need to, you know, maybe come fill in for me.

I'm good on that.

So what's that process like when you're defending someone accused of that?

Is there a lot of research and everything?

You know, a lot of people always think, oh, it's the law.

It's the law.

The law is pretty simple really when it comes down to it.

You go to the statute and it says if you commit this crime, you had to do A, B, C, D, and E.

Yeah.

So you take a look at it and you first say, all right, what facts does the government have to prove A, B, C, D, and E?

And if they have them, then you got to go have that realistic conversation with your client of, hey, this isn't good.

They can prove all those elements that they have to prove.

And if they prove those, you're going to, you know, have negative consequences.

So what do you want to do?

Do you want us to go to trial, hold the government to their burden of proof of beyond a reasonable doubt, make them convince that jury of 12 people unanimously that you committed all of those elements?

Because if they failed to prove just one of those elements, it would be the jury's solemn oath and obligation to say not guilty.

Wow.

Sometimes clients are saying, you know, I did it.

Just get me the best deal you can.

Sometimes the prosecution offers you a great deal.

You can't turn it down.

Sometimes there is no offer.

So even though you may think, yeah, the government's going to be able to prove A, B, C, D, and E, you go try that case regardless.

Yeah.

And sometimes you win.

Sometimes you win trials you were supposed to lose.

Wow.

So, you know, it doesn't matter.

You know, it's, it's kind of like football.

You know, that's why they play the game.

On any given Sunday, any team could win.

That's true.

And you never know what's going to happen at trial.

You usually have a pretty good idea.

You've thought about it.

You You know what to anticipate.

But at the end of the day, if the prosecution doesn't get the right witness, they can't get the piece of evidence in correctly, who knows?

Maybe the jury just didn't believe the witness from the government.

They can say not guilty.

I've won lots of trials that I should have lost.

Wow.

So there's a lot of factors that go into this.

You can't even predict like how the jury will react, right?

That's a big factor.

Yeah, you don't know who the jury is going to be until you get there that morning.

Right.

And, you know, they always put on TV and these big civil cases,

they have jury consultants and they're searching everybody.

In an everyday criminal trial, you don't have that, right?

You have to have kind of those people skills, so to speak, of do I like this person?

There's a jury.

You get their name.

They call 12 people into the main box.

Then everybody else is kind of the pool.

And the judge will sometimes give you, I've had a homicide case where each side, the prosecution and the defense is given 20 minutes to decide if these 12 people are going to be fair and impartial for your client.

Wow.

And most people don't realize that.

Like, well, some judges are, well, maybe we'll give you an hour.

Yeah.

You know,

the jury selection part of the trial, the voider, it's a French term that means to speak the truth, is the most important part of the trial.

But that's the part you never see on TV.

It's very quick.

Yeah, how do they do it on TV?

How do they decide who's on the jury?

Is it random?

The jury commissioner from the jurisdiction that's doing the trial sends out jury summons and they say, you know, please show up.

And maybe they call in, you know, 300 jurors for a normal Monday.

And depending on how many trials they have going, and based upon that, they generate a list.

This goes to courtroom one.

This goes to courtroom two.

And that's when you get your list of potential jurors.

So you don't have time to research them.

It's that

initial interaction.

Are they burning holes through your, you know, through your client with their eyes as you sit there.

Yeah.

When they read the charges, did they roll their eyes?

Did they say, ah, you know, you have to really watch what takes place.

It's the non-verbal cues that are the most important.

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I really think it's an art in in the sense of jury selection because sometimes you you have jurors you're like oh this does not fit my demographic that I think that I'm looking for in a jury but you talk to them and you're like wow didn't see that coming which is you know what I've learned over the years you just cannot you know the old classic don't judge a book by its cover yeah yeah it's so true when it comes to jury selection you have to be able to talk to them if it were up to me I'd want to sit down and have a conversation take them to lunch you know so you're allowed to talk to the jury members Only during void here.

What's up?

That's the jury selection process.

So that's where you get to ask them questions like, hey, you heard the charges.

What went through your head?

Do you think you'd be a fair and impartial juror?

What about you would make you a good juror?

The most important question I always think is, who wants to be here?

And I always look for the person that says, I don't want to be here.

There's always that one person who's like, well, your client's guilty.

He wouldn't be sitting here today if it weren't for that.

And so then you have to use that opportunity to educate not only that juror, but the rest of the jury pool.

You know, for example, say, well, my client's guilty.

So you give an example and say, well, if you parked in that parking lot today, right?

You drove your car here.

Yeah, let me give you a hypothetical.

I parked my car in that parking lot as well.

When I came out today, let's say you didn't get selected as a juror, but I come out and there's a big old door ding on my car.

I call the police.

I said, I've been the victim of a crime.

My car has been criminally mischiefed.

And all I know is that particular juror was there when I left.

So, you know, I call the police.

I've been a victim.

Cop says, okay, fine.

I'm going to do my job.

I'm going to go investigate it.

And they go and they talk to the juror and said, were you there?

Yes, I was.

Were you parked next to Scott in his car?

Well, I think so.

I remember seeing him vaguely.

Yeah.

Did you put that door ding in Scott's car?

Well, no.

And the cop says, here's your summons, sort it out in court.

Wow.

So I try to use that example as...

That happened to you?

I use that example to the jury to show how quickly somebody could find themselves in court accused of a crime.

Oh, got it.

So let's say that juror gets, you know, booted off early and maybe there were six other cars that came in there.

But now that person has to go get himself representation.

That guy has to, you know, hire the attorney, come to court, take time off, try to find witnesses, see if there's video in that thing, any other, anything.

And so he's inconvenienced.

But it shows that, hey, you think my guy's guilty by, you know, because he's got a defendant label on his chair, you know, the desk that we're sitting at.

But it could happen to anybody.

Yeah.

And so I try to use that.

And then also the presumption of innocence.

You know, most people think, well, you know, presumption of innocence, what is that?

Well, you know, that's the most important part of a trial.

If jurors come in there and they say, well, the guy's guilty, guilty,

the charges, and the judge said, you know, the charges aren't evidence, but, you know,

he must have done something guilty.

I always use the example.

Once again, try to find somebody that is hostile to you and say, okay, let's have a conversation.

You know, I remember I had a gentleman once, he was like, your client's guilty.

I know common sense.

Police didn't just pluck him off the street and do that.

And I said, okay, sir, let me give you this.

You're married, yes.

Okay.

Do you have a wife?

You have a wife?

Yes.

And does she work?

Yes.

What time does she usually arrive home?

About 6 p.m.

All right.

Well, what time,

let me, you know, I give them a hypothetical.

Say, so maybe 6.30, she doesn't arrive home.

So you're getting a little worried.

Maybe you send her a text, right?

Yeah, that's fair.

7 o'clock, maybe you try calling her.

7.30 goes around, you maybe start calling the office.

8, you start calling friends.

9, you maybe go drive around.

And at a certain point, let's say, you know, by 10 p.m., you get a knock on your door.

And somebody's at the front door and it's the FBI.

And the guy said, oh, my gosh, is my wife okay?

Well, sir, we want to talk to you about your wife.

You know, we arrested her because she robbed a bank today.

And I asked the juror, I said, what would be the first thing that goes through your mind?

Well, it's impossible.

She couldn't have done it.

And I said, exactly, sir.

So you would give her the presumption of innocence.

And that's what jurors have to be able to do when they're sitting there is saying, clean slate.

I'm going to give them presumption of innocence.

I don't believe it.

But a lot of people don't.

That's why the jury selection process is so important.

It's the most important part of the trial, really, because if you don't get those jurors that are going to start off with that presumption of innocence,

the case is over.

I feel like

social media has amplified that.

Now it seems like you're guilty until proven innocent these days.

There is so much going on these days, particularly like in the true crime area.

And not to disparage anyone because I don't want to do that, but there's a lot of people out there that don't know what the the heck they're talking about.

What I think that my podcast, and there's others out there, I'm not the only one that does it, but

I've been doing criminal defense for 30 years.

I've seen a lot.

A lot of people don't understand the rules of evidence, what it means, the procedures.

And they just get out there and they talk and they talk about crazy, crazy stuff.

They talk about crazy theories and it's absurd.

And, you know, people are like, well, how come you're not talking about this particular podcaster who said this?

Because it's nonsense.

It's garbage.

It's never going to get admitted into court of law.

You keep it to straight facts, you know, documents.

We try to keep it to the facts and what we know.

We try to keep it unbiased.

And the reason why is, you know, a lot of people think, oh, you're a criminal defense attorney, Scott.

You must have drank the Kool-Aid.

Everybody's innocent.

No, that's not the case.

A good attorney.

has a responsibility to always tell you the good, the bad, and the ugly of your case.

And if the attorney comes to you and says, you know, I thought things were going to be good, but now I got a new piece of evidence.

You know, that piece of DNA that you maybe told me about, that you didn't think they'd find, well, they found it.

Now we're in big trouble.

So, you know, we need to start making new decisions.

Yeah.

So, you know, the information, the advice you give clients is always changing based upon the

new information that comes in.

Oh, this case is terrible.

Oh,

the complaining witness got hit by a big bus.

Oh, my gosh, that's terrible.

Oh, guess what?

The case is going to be dismissed.

So it always depends on the facts.

And so, can they prove those elements?

But it also depends on the facts.

Yeah.

And what most people won't tell you is, and most people don't know it is most cases come down to the facts.

Who can find the best facts in the case?

Right.

Over your 30-year career, are there any cases you still think about that kind of are in the back of your head?

You know, I try to block a lot of those out that were

some tough ones.

ones.

But, you know, the

difficult cases,

you know,

those are the ones that

still kind of keep you up at night where

you, you know, it's like you always wonder,

you know, did we do enough?

Was there something that we missed?

Right.

You know, was there something else out there?

Now, you know, do I lose a whole lot of sleep over those cases?

No, because I think we did everything we could.

You know, when I say we, you know, it's not just me, but, you know, other attorneys in my office, investigators, experts.

You know, there are cases that, you know, make you wonder.

We had a case.

It was quite big.

It had a lot of publicity, but involved some doomsday cult

over on the western slope near Telluride, Colorado.

It was about five years ago now.

And it was a tragic case.

Two young children passed away.

They were basically found mullified in a car.

And the mom had left and they were on this property thinking the world was going to come to an end.

Weird kind of set of facts.

But nobody could say how or when and under what was the cause and manner of death for that case.

And

the law, I mean, I really think the judge in that particular case was sympathetic to our cause.

Like, you know, my client's children were fine where they were on this piece of property.

The mother of the dead children children had fled, but yet you're saying that they're all in it together and they should be held accountable.

That one really bugs me.

And I don't think that my client had anything to do with that, but I don't think we were ever going to get a true result.

So that one really bugs me.

So they had no evidence on him and he got sentenced?

Other than he was at the property and he was part of this group that they thought the world was coming to an end.

Right.

And so they stopped eating.

And so these kids were found in a car of a mom.

They were like on a big property, and they kind of had one section, and another, the family had another one here, another one there.

And ultimately, the mom left.

The guys didn't even know that the kids were in this car.

Ultimately, the sheriff shows up, they see the car, they pull it back, and there's little these two deceased children in there.

But I mean, they had multiple people look at this.

We had our own experts look at it where, how did these children die?

What did somebody strangle them?

Yeah.

They couldn't tell.

How old were they?

Four and seven, I think.

Wow.

That's young.

And, you know, there was no bullet wound, no stab wound.

They couldn't say anything about it.

Just he was in the area was enough.

He was in the area.

And the DA is arguing, well, it takes a village.

Yeah.

Well, where does it stop?

Because the sheriff had come by and

checked on the property.

Why not hold them responsible?

How about the people at the store that said, well, I saw the kids and then I didn't see the kids.

Why aren't they, you know, why shouldn't they be held responsible?

So

that one bothers me.

Do you feel like it's a lot harder to get away with crimes these days?

Cause now they're geo-tracking phones.

You saw with that rapper, YNW Melly, they found him because his phone was on him.

Yes.

Not that I'm encouraging people to commit a crime, okay?

But your cell phone is the greatest

tool, evidence that's going to be used against you.

The first thing that police do these days, if they have a suspect, they go look and see if they have a Facebook account.

Do they have an Instagram account?

Oh, we can get their phone number.

Next thing you know, they send a request off to get your location data for that phone.

They can get that rather expeditiously these days.

The phone carriers cooperate with the police

so it's no sweat.

Then they start, you know, they find it and they have other means of, of course, finding you.

And then,

Once they arrest you, they'll seize your phone.

They'll get a warrant for your phone.

They'll go in and get your text messages, your emails, all your other apps on there.

They can go get a warrant for all of that stuff.

And even if you think you've deleted it,

those apps, those people still have that information.

Wow.

Snapchat is a classic example.

People think, well,

it erases itself, right?

Yeah, yeah.

No.

Snapchat keeps all that.

All the photos they keep?

Yes.

Wow.

Saw a case,

the exact same situation.

There was an alleged crime that took place and somebody Snapchatted the picture of it to friends.

Look what I'm doing.

They deleted it, thought it was deleted.

What do they do?

They go to Snapchat.

They get those records.

So, like I said, we're not encouraging people to take, you know, to commit crime.

But if you do, don't take your cell phone with you because it is the greatest

piece of evidence that is going to be used against you.

And it's always the defendant's own words that get them in the end.

Wow.

And when it comes from your own phone,

it's not good usually.

And for you, that's hard to defend because they're probably not even telling you about it.

Right.

Yes.

It's very difficult.

You know, I may find this hard to believe, but sometimes clients don't always tell their attorneys everything.

Even though you tell them, this is protected under the attorney client privilege so that you can tell me everything so that I can give you the best legal advice that I can possibly give you.

It's like most people.

They don't want

to feel embarrassed.

They don't want to be judged.

And so sometimes it takes time.

But as I tell clients all the time, listen, if we go to court and I get my trousers pulled down around my ankles because you didn't tell me something I didn't know was coming, I'm going to look really silly, but you're probably going to go to prison.

So tell me now.

Sometimes they tell us, sometimes they don't.

But it's a lot easier if I know what's coming.

How have you seen the space evolve over the 30 years you've been in it?

Have you seen a lot of changes?

Yes, There have been a lot of changes since I started practicing.

So when I opened my own practice in January of 2000, I had just gotten off of active duty.

I was in the Marine Corps.

I was a judge advocate.

And I was a prior enlisted guy as well.

So I went out and started my own practice.

And

I interviewed with a couple of firms because I had a lot of trial experience when I was in the Marine Corps.

And they're like, wow, you have more trial experience than most of our senior partners.

And I was like, wow, it sounds like you should pay me lots of money.

And they're like, no, we don't want to pay you lots of money.

So I said, okay, fine, I'll go do it myself.

So I opened my own practice.

And at the start of January 1, it'll be the start of my 24th year in private practice.

But it was a lot easier.

It really was.

You would call and get the discovery, all the police reports in a case, and you'd go pick them up.

And it'd be about this thick.

Now it's all digital.

And they're like, yeah, you need to drop off a one to five terabyte hard drive for all the discovery

because of all the video that's available these days, body cam, body worn cameras,

cameras everywhere, ring doorbells,

cell phones, when they, I mean, you may not think about it, but the amount of information on your cell phone and all the apps that they can access when they break into your phone or actively get in with your consent, it's massive.

So imagine having to go through all that.

So it's much much more time consuming, even on the simpler case.

You think, oh, this is no big deal.

Even a simple DUI, but you have three officers show up and they interact for an hour.

Well, now it's four hours.

So cases have gotten more expensive for clients.

The

discovery is more voluminous.

It seems like more district attorneys have more policies because everybody's afraid of making a decision.

And so just more bureaucracy all around.

Politics, yeah.

And and in all honesty, sometimes it seems like a lot of the clients are a lot more difficult.

And I thought, well, maybe it's just me.

And I asked friends, is it just me or are clients even a little more difficult?

And they all agree that they are because I think in the age of the internet, everybody wants to be their own lawyer and Google it.

Okay.

And, you know, one Google search does not make you a lawyer.

It may make you knowledgeable, but it doesn't make you a lawyer.

Yeah.

And it certainly doesn't make you a trial attorney.

There's a big difference.

Wow.

That makes sense, though.

Everyone thinks they could just look up stuff and know the answer.

It's a lot more difficult than most people think.

It really is.

And, you know, we,

as a criminal defense attorney, we get to see people at their worst.

It's a scary time.

They don't know, you know, am I going to prison?

Am I going to lose my family?

Am I going to lose my job?

And it really brings out

the practice of criminal law.

It's a front row seat on humanity.

And sometimes you don't always like what you see,

but you've learned, you learn a lot of things.

And there's some basic things that I've learned throughout this process.

Probably one of the first things is

I've learned, I used to tell this to my kids all the time.

There's two types of people in the world.

Those that are humble and those that are about to be.

And that's never wrong.

I don't care how big somebody gets, they can always be humbled, right?

I had a case once.

I was feeling pretty good.

I had walked a client on a homicide case.

Second time I walked him on a case.

Big case like that.

And I go over the next day, have a quick court appearance for a new client, do a bond argument to get their bond reduced so they could get out of custody.

And the judge denied it.

Wow.

And the client looked at me.

I'm feeling pretty good about myself about, you know, I just walked my

client second time on a homicide case.

I'm the man.

And the guy looked at me and goes, man, you can't even win a, you can't even win a

bond argument.

What kind of attorney are you?

Damn.

And at that moment, I was just like, wow.

Well, that's over.

You know,

enjoy it.

Well, alas.

But,

you know, like I said,

you get to see people

oftentimes it's like their worst moment in their life.

Yeah.

And they're scared.

Sometimes they take it out on the attorney.

Sometimes they spiral out of control and say, oh, I'm going to lose everything.

So let's just go big and, you know, go commit more crime or something along those lines.

And, you know, some days I feel, you know, they say attorney and counselor at law.

A lot of days I feel more like a counselor or a life coach trying to get these people through it.

Like, you can do it.

This, this is not going to define you.

Yeah.

Life is going to be okay.

We're going to get you through it, you know, and you're a good person.

And

I spent a lot of time being a life coach.

I could see it, man, because it's emotional, especially with the cases you're taking on.

They're facing a lot of years in jail for the most part.

Yeah, most of my cases are very serious.

You know, and don't get me wrong.

Every case that somebody has, it's a big deal to them.

So even if it's a small, you know, traffic infraction, a DUI, or whether you're charged with murder or wire fraud in federal court, it's a big deal to that person.

And that's what we always try to remember is that, you know what I mean?

This is their only case.

We may have handled it a hundred times, but we need to make sure, you know, and do this, because really what it comes down to in any business, it really comes down to customer service.

You know, do you take their phone call?

Do you write them back?

Do you send them a letter explaining

what's going on?

It's like anything, whether it's a restaurant, a law firm, a podcast, are you giving them what they want?

Are you meeting their needs?

That's what it comes down to.

Have you ever gone against the FBI?

I've heard their conviction rate is 97% or something crazy.

Yeah,

the FBI obviously prosecutes cases in federal court.

And in federal court, they have about a 98% conviction rate.

Wow.

And they handle it.

And the reason is they handle it differently.

In state, you know, the investigator is like, oh, they trip over a body.

We need to figure out who did this and arrest somebody.

The feds take it a little differently.

They get a tip or they identify a target.

They build a case around that target.

It could take, you know, six weeks, six months, six years.

And when they finally get to the point where they say, we're ready, then they indict.

They usually have everything locked up pretty tight.

It doesn't mean

you can't win.

Four of my last five federal trials, we've gotten not guilty verdicts on.

Wow.

So now the last one wasn't so pretty.

We crashed and burned pretty much that that one, but you can't win them all.

Still, 80% against the feds is crazy.

It's tough, but it's not impossible.

Yeah.

You know, and one of you talked about, you know, what's changed.

It's so expensive these days.

Most people cannot afford a zealous defense

privately because they just can't do it.

Most people, even federal court,

I mean, they just assume most people are going to get court-appointed counsel in federal court because it's so expensive, because this discovery is so voluminous.

Wow.

I feel like that puts the defendant at a massive disadvantage because the public guys aren't as good as people like you, right?

Well, yeah.

And I mean, listen, some of the best attorneys I've ever seen have been public defenders.

Okay.

Some of the worst I've ever seen have been public defenders.

Some of the best private attorneys I've ever seen have obviously been private attorneys, right?

Some of the worst attorneys I've ever seen have been private attorneys.

It just depends.

You have to love what you do.

I still love what I do.

And at the end of the day, you know, a lot of people think, oh, you're a criminal defense attorney, you're condoning what your client did.

No, we're not.

We are protecting everybody's constitutional rights on a daily basis.

Okay.

Nobody in the government is going to do it for you.

Okay.

They're going to get up.

Nobody gets up in the morning.

The federal government says, you know what?

I think we should trust those citizens a little bit more.

You know what?

I think that search was illegal.

I think the officers went a little too far.

They don't do that.

They'll come up with a way to rationalize it, justify it.

And oftentimes the judges go along with it because, you know, they're law enforcement, they're, they're the good guys.

And don't get me wrong, most law enforcement is great.

It's the bad ones you got to get rid of.

The problem is for longest time, law enforcement or, you know, other professions, they always protect the guys that aren't so great.

No, get rid of the bad ones.

You know, the one good thing about attorneys is that if there's a bad one, we want to get rid of them.

There's so much competition out there.

If we can get rid of one, let's get rid of it.

So,

you know, that's what it comes down to.

But every day, you know, the attorneys are out there defending everyone's constitutional rights.

And so, you know, talk about going up against the FBI, the government?

Well, it's usually that one, you know, attorney down there when the client's brought in in shackles and their little green jumpsuit.

The prosecution wants to do something and that one attorney is saying, no, you can't do that.

That's against the Constitution.

Those are the cases that ultimately make it to the United States Supreme Court or the state Supreme Court because that one attorney says, no, you can't do that.

You are exceeding your power and authority under the Constitution.

And you said it's expensive.

How much are we talking defending these cases?

Six figures?

Really?

If it goes to trial?

Yes.

Wow.

Yes.

I mean,

for, I mean, a, you know, a simple drug case where there's probably going to be a plea, but there's so much stuff that you have to review, the discovery, the police reports, the investigation, all that.

You go to court, you litigate it.

I mean, yeah, it's $25,000 to $50,000 for a case like that.

You go to trial.

I mean, we're talking, it could be hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Dang.

So the point is not to get to trial.

The point is not to get in trouble.

If I had to give my best advice, it would be, don't break the law.

That's the best advice you can do.

Save your money.

Don't send it to the attorneys.

Well, I'm sure if the wrong person's out to you, they could find anything on everyone.

You know what I mean?

What's the old saying?

You know,

show me the man and I'll show you the crime.

They can find something on you if you become the target.

Even just speeding or something minuscule.

You know, I think it was Warren Buffett that said, hey, if you follow somebody for 500 miles, you know, eventually they're going to get that turn signal.

You're going to, you know, weave in the lane and they're going to pull you over for whatever reason.

Absolutely.

They can find anything they want on you.

Scott, it's been fun diving into your world, man.

Where can people find you?

Well, you can go to Crime Talk with Scott Reich at YouTube.

We also have our website, scottreich.com, R-E-I-S-C-H.

That has a lot of our videos, plus some other information up there as well.

And come check us out.

Perfect.

Thanks for coming on, man.

I appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thanks for watching, guys.

See you tomorrow.