So You Got Arrested
The Texas justice system can be messy- we talk to the key players to uncover what really happens. Hosted by BRCK Criminal Defense Attorneys, this podcast dives into real stories and hard truths from inside the Texas criminal courts.
We explore what happens after an arrest, how charges are fought, and what it's like to face the court system in places like San Antonio, South Texas, Austin and the Texas Hill Country.
Whether you’ve been arrested, have a loved one in jail, or just want to understand the criminal defense process in Texas, this show gives you raw, unfiltered insight from criminal lawyers, legal experts, and those directly impacted by the system.
So You Got Arrested
What Happens After You’re Arrested (and Why It Takes So Long) — Judge Lefton Explains
Being arrested can be a confusing and overwhelming experience, and the legal process that follows can feel incredibly slow. In this new episode of the "So You Got Arrested Podcast Show," we sit down with Judge Lefton to get an insider's perspective on what happens after you're taken into custody.
Why does it take so long? Judge Lefton explains the critical steps that require time and diligence from all parties involved, including the exchange of evidence (discovery), the need for thorough investigations, and the sheer volume of cases moving through the court system.
This episode is an essential guide for anyone who wants to understand the criminal defense process, whether you've been arrested, have a loved one in the system, or are simply curious about how justice is served. Get a raw, unfiltered look at the journey from arrest to resolution, and learn why every step, no matter how small, is a crucial part of the process.
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The Texas justice system is messy, so let's break it down. You're listening to so you got arrested the podcast that tells you what really happens after an arrest hosted by brick criminal defense attorneys. We talk to the people who've lived it, worked in it and been shaped by it, whether you're facing charges or just want to understand your rights, your options and the smart moves that could change everything. We've got your back.
Speaker 2:Good evening everybody. This is Scott Simpson and Stephen Barrera. We're with Brick Criminal Defense. Good to see you again this week. And this week we have a guest with us. We have Lauren Lefton and she is a part-time city magistrate and so we're going to talk about when you get arrested, like we've been talking about a lot of different weeks, and so so, lauren, I picked up a DWI Okay, all right, and I'm scared, and they put me in this big cell with a bunch of different people like and some are mean, one guy pissed himself, oh no, and and like what the hell is going on?
Speaker 3:It sounds like a night at the river went wrong. And so where? What are you doing? What's gone wrong? Obviously, you are accused of drinking and driving, and now you're in the process. So whether you are guilty or not guilty is irrelevant at this point. You have to go through this experience and then hire a great law firm, like maybe Rick, to represent you in your DWI. So you've been arrested.
Speaker 3:The first thing, if you're arrested by San Antonio police department, you're going to go to the city detention center, which is on South Frio. If you're arrested by a sheriff's department or another small municipality, you're going to go straight to the Barrett County Jail on Comal Street. So I work on Frio. So if you see me as a judge, what will happen is you arrive at the city detention center, they book you, they do your standard search. That's when, in Scott's scenario, you then wake up. You're in the cell with all the other misdemeanor offenders. So not only the drunk tank with the guy that pissed himself, but you have the guy that maybe hit his wife or girlfriend and had a little marijuana on him also. So you're in the cell with a bunch of guys sitting and waiting and you wonder what is taking so long? Why am I sitting here?
Speaker 4:well, and, and to be clear, you said a bunch of guys, women get arrested too right, we promote equality here on this podcast.
Speaker 3:Yes plenty of women get arrested. They hit their boyfriends.
Speaker 4:They drink and drive they.
Speaker 3:So women or men are all there and they do segregate the cells. So there are two cells dedicated to women, there are cells dedicated to men. They separate felony men and misdemeanor men. They also for men, not for women, separate if they think there's a different preference and maybe gender or preferences, they keep those people separate.
Speaker 4:I wasn't aware of that Right.
Speaker 3:So typically I don't know the PC.
Speaker 4:People who might identify differently or have different orientations. They may get placed separately.
Speaker 3:So they separate them as well. So they do try to create a safe environment so that you know the angry guy doesn't attack the less angry guy. So still scary, still very scary, and you feel very frustrated because you don't get a lot of answers. So you're sitting in the cell. The detention staff has hopefully given you a small white piece of paper with a PIN number on it, and that PIN number is supposed to allow you to make phone calls.
Speaker 4:When does that happen? Because I know we get calls from family that say, hey, my loved one was just arrested. When am I going to hear from them?
Speaker 3:Right, and that's a great question. So it's supposed to happen right away. When they're put in the cell, they're supposed to have a phone with a pin. However, if you come in in today's world, we don't memorize phone numbers anymore. So that's the first obstacle is, if you don't have any phone numbers memorized and your phone was dead or you weren't arrested with your phone, you have no way of getting numbers to call, which is a challenge and no one can help you with that.
Speaker 2:The first thing we've got to learn is that we need to remember somebody's phone number if we ever get arrested.
Speaker 3:Yes, I always say you need to have at least one number memorized and that person needs to know to answer, collect calls. Right that's. It's a two-step process.
Speaker 4:My next tattoo yeah, put that on the back of all of our cards.
Speaker 3:So. But if you don't get the piece of paper or you can't get through the jail, the city jail is supposed to allow you a free phone call, but it's after you've seen the judge, which can be several hours later.
Speaker 4:So that's what I wanted to ask about. From the time that somebody is placed in a cuffs by SAPD, how long is it before they get in front of you?
Speaker 3:So it varies. What happens is the person is arrest, booked. The officer then goes to the what they call the warrant clerks at the city and he says I've arrested so-and-so. To what they call the warrant clerks at the city and he says I've arrested so-and-so, run their criminal history. This is what they were arrested for. And then they go and they write the report and there's no clock on these officers for how long they want to take to write the report.
Speaker 3:So DWIs, for example, are very complicated reports and involve a lot of paperwork. On top of that, if it's a blood draw DWI, so when you're arrested for a DWI you have the option to give a breath specimen. If you refuse, typically they do go and they get a warrant from a judge and that so that even probably adds at least an hour more to your weight because they get there, there's the refusal, so they go for the warrant. First the judge signs off on the warrant. If there's probable cause, then they execute the warrant, meaning they have nurses at the jail, they pull you out of your cell, take you back to the nurse's station and they do the blood draw, and then so that's probably added at least 30 minutes to an hour, just before the officer even starts writing his report. Now, a little secret is a lot of these officers probably copy and paste the narrative into the body of their police report.
Speaker 2:So then sometimes there's an officer who doesn't want to get back on patrol until the end of their shift Right.
Speaker 3:So let's say they make the arrest at 1230.
Speaker 3:If they knock out the report and all of that in two hours, they have to keep working until 6 am, but if they happen to stay there till like 4.30, so unfortunately there's just no control of how long the officer chooses to take to turn in a report.
Speaker 3:And I have to say, when I work I try to be proactive, because it's not fair to sit in a jail cell with uncertainty, not being able to contact family. The city jail does not feed you at all. There's no food there. They do provide water, of course, but it's not a comfortable circumstance. It's either cold or it's uncomfortable, it's stinky. So I try to be very proactive when I'm working, in that if I can check with the clerks, if someone's been there six hours, I start looking for the officer and say where's the report? Or and I have a nice relationship with the nurses, so if someone's there for mental health or has physical disabilities, they may say to me hey, this guy's been here a long time, like let's speak because they want him out. Cause at the end of the day, when you arrest someone, that person's body then is the possession of either the city or the county.
Speaker 4:You become responsible for them.
Speaker 3:Right, a hundred percent, and so I do try to help make sure, if I think someone is kind of being lost or forgotten in the process, to move it forward. But once the officer turns in the report, well before they turn it in, first of all there's the DA there and the DA does review it and they make their own determination. Is there probable cause for arrest?
Speaker 4:A lot of our viewers aren't familiar. I mean, we've mentioned terms like probable cause, but can you just explain what that is? If they say, hey, I'm trying to find probable cause, or I want to see probable cause, what is that?
Speaker 3:I define it as more likely than not that something happened. So there has to be a basis, a foundation, a few indicators of evidence. It doesn't mean that you're guilty. It doesn't mean that you're guilty. It doesn't mean it's a lock, solid, done deal. But for a DWI it could be the odor of alcohol, the fact that they were driving a vehicle, an admission of drinking, and that's really enough for probable cause, in my opinion.
Speaker 4:for a DWI arrest. You're not saying somebody's guilty, You're just saying hey, is there enough here to justify them being detained for this for now?
Speaker 3:Correct and maybe doing a further investigation like the blood warrant. Okay, okay. So once the report is first, the DA reviews the report, they determine that there's probable cause and they then approve it for filing and then they pass it on. The officer turns it into the clerks and then the clerks prepare it and they pass it on to me. Now, because it's a revolving door, 24 hour system, the you know, even if it's turned in at, let's say, 1 am, because they have to get in the back of the line of the other people that are waiting to see the judge, they may not see the judge till 2 am, sure, 3 am, because it is a system and every judge runs their court, however, how they choose, and we always talk about, you know, people who are unlucky enough for you know to get arrested on a Friday night or a Saturday night.
Speaker 4:I would imagine that line gets pretty long.
Speaker 3:It can, and so I choose again to be proactive. So the detention staff to the municipal courtroom can bring five people at a time, and they do. So they do dockets of five, but I have decided that it is faster to bring one people to many than many people to one. So I am unorthodox in that I actually go back and I magistrate people in the back. I don't wait for the detention staff to come to me, because I do want to help people get out faster, because once they're done with you, they have another stop.
Speaker 3:Right, exactly, you know, and they have. So then basically I see people and I actually don't set any bonds. I make findings or determinations of probable cause and I sign commitment orders for the city, so so, let me ask you this You're You're looking for this probable cause.
Speaker 4:If an officer turns in his report maybe the DA has reviewed it and you see it and you say, hey, wait a minute, I don't find that there's enough here for probable cause, what happens?
Speaker 3:I get to sign the all-powerful rejection form and I can reject the case for no probable cause.
Speaker 4:And then what happens to the person in custody?
Speaker 3:The person would get released then from the city. Now it may take a few hours again because of the process, but yeah, they would get released and I've done it plenty of times when I don't feel that there's probable cause.
Speaker 4:And that's without them having to set bail or anything like that. It's just, hey, this case is not good enough. What you brought me does not pass the muster.
Speaker 2:Now it's important to note that that doesn't mean the police can't do further investigation and still file a case with the DA's office at large. You may not be arrested down the line.
Speaker 3:And that's what I tell everyone. I've chosen to reject the case. There is a chance. The DA has what's called the statute of limitations to file these charges against you. You may or may not be arrested in the future on this, but for now you're leaving, and I think it's an important check on the balance of powers. Just because you're arrested, just because the officer thinks there's probable cause, doesn't always mean that there is. You can't make mistakes.
Speaker 4:It sounds like there's no, you know, just hard and fast timeline to these cases. So we, you know and I know you do defense work as well I'm sure you get the same calls we do from families that are saying, hey, my loved one just got arrested. How long until they're eligible to get out? I mean, there's so many variables at play that it takes a while.
Speaker 3:And I tell everyone that I see as the judge plan on spending at least 24 hours until you're released from jail. From when you've seen me and when people respond very in frustration, I just say I'd rather overestimate than underestimate, but it is a very long process on both sides of the process. So after you're done seeing me and you get processed ready to go over to county for where the magistrate judges there do set bonds and that's where you're going to be released from. What takes maybe maybe more, adds more time to the fact is that the county only accepts people from san antonio on a two-hour bus schedule and only 10 people at a time.
Speaker 4:wow, so so this is a step before they can get released on bail that they have to go through right yeah not even a bond set.
Speaker 3:Yet right, no bond set, you just need transportation from the city to the county. Okay, so it has been agreed between the two entities that there's going to be a schedule where they agree to 10 people and it's a mix of men and women, but they don't put men and women on the same bus. So there's one transport for men, one for women, but they do 10 people on this set schedule. During the day it's every four hours, from like 10 PM to 11 AM, it's every two hours. And then you get over to the County and at that point the County, uh, they stamp what is it void on all the city paperwork and they redo it all. And then the magistrate judges over there are the ones that basically conduct the same hearing find probable cause and then at that point they set bond and conditions of bond.
Speaker 4:So it sounds like you know. People go through this process where they're waiting in a line so that they can get in front of you and then after that they have to wait in another line to catch that bus over to the county detention center.
Speaker 2:Yes, and then wait in another line to be in front of the county magistrate. Yes, to set the bond.
Speaker 3:And then they wait in an even longer line to be released, because I mean After they've been processed. After they've been processed. So then I've had the jail tell me, working as a defense attorney, that it takes 12 hours to be released from when bond is posted.
Speaker 4:So this is after the judge has already said hey, we're going to set bail at this amount. Your family's come up with the money. They've posted that bond. You've now posted this bond and this promise to come back to court, and you still get held, possibly another 12 hours.
Speaker 3:I think 12 hours is being nice, okay, wow. I don't know if y'all are getting similar calls like that but we do.
Speaker 4:And then and then of course you occasionally have those issues where they put in that 48 hour family violence hold and people get held, or GPS.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so on the other side, I wanted to talk about one that you do do emergency protective orders, I do and I want to talk about the things like GPS and the family violence holds and things like that.
Speaker 4:And those factors can add even more time to this process, right, of course. And this is where you get the loved ones on the other end, who are freaking out, wondering well, I haven't heard from them. What's taking so long? You know how soon can they get out? And there's just all these things that need to be considered.
Speaker 2:Right, I know the website where I can look up to see where you're at in the Bexar County magistration process. Is there a similar thing you can look up to see where you're?
Speaker 3:at in the city there is, I believe, and the city is very good about answering the phone, so someone can always call the city and say is someone there? Because sometimes, even though before they're in the computer system, they're already there, because they're not entered into any system until the officer has officially booked them or requested their criminal history. But they may have already been there an hour depending on the timing of the officer.
Speaker 2:Let's pick that up right after the break. All right, and we'll go from there.
Speaker 5:The attorneys of Brick Criminal Defense have helped over 5,000 clients move on with their lives. When an arrest or accusation turns your life upside down, we have the knowledge, experience and integrity to get your life back on track. Traditional legal ethics, modern legal tactics the best defense possible to get you through the criminal justice system. Search Brick Criminal Defense to see our reviews and find out why so many of our clients have trusted us to fight for them. Bric Criminal Defense helping our clients move on with their lives.
Speaker 2:So we're back. And then, of course, I did want to put in a plug for Lauren. She is the queen of tickets all over the state of Texas. She does all kinds of traffic tickets, anything involving class Cs, everywhere. She's the goddess.
Speaker 3:Commercial truck drivers. If you drive a truck, I'm here to help you and I can attest to that.
Speaker 4:I was in my former life a municipal court prosecutor and I dealt with Lauren and she did a fantastic job for her clients and saved a lot of those Class C driver's license or the commercial driver's license.
Speaker 2:But we're talking about. So you're still in the city magistrate process and've got to finish up there and catch a bus before you go to the county. And it's not until you get to the county that the bond company in theory the loved ones should be contacting bond companies, but there's not going to be any ability to make bond until they're out of your system. So can you talk about that?
Speaker 3:I can, and I think the general advice that bond companies say to people that start calling like someone's been nurses is they say we can't do anything, call us when there are in the County system, but until they're in the system we can't even start the process.
Speaker 2:So we're talking about an average of six to eight hours in your system before they get to the County.
Speaker 3:That's my understanding is what they've averaged to that. Yeah, okay, I think that's good. All right to that. Yeah, I think that's good.
Speaker 2:It should be longer. So let's talk about some other things you do at the city besides finding probable cause.
Speaker 3:Tell us about emergency protective orders. So emergency protective orders come about in some sort of family violence dynamic or situation and it's a tool for victim protection. And what an emergency protective order does is basically prohibits the person that's subject to it from being within a certain number of feet from a specific location, like a residence or a school, and then also says you can't have contact with that person. And what the kind of the teeth of a protective order is is you can get arrested on a new criminal offense if you violate it. So now I've had officers ask me for protective orders on Class C assaults. So a Class C assault is and that can be family violence is an offense of touching. So my little push right here to Scott could get me a Class C assault and so, which most people don't realize, it's that easy to pick up an assault. I personally don't feel that a protective order is necessary for that level of offense. Some officers do, but the law does require protective orders on certain aggravated offenses like aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, sexual assault, things like that nature. So in that case I have no discretion, I have to do it and I have to do it for 90 days. However, in lesser assaultive offenses like family violence or second, you know which is a third degree felony, a misdemeanor family violence, assault. That is totally within my discretion if I think it's appropriate or not.
Speaker 3:And one thing that I have learned that you can tweak a protective order. So a lot of people are saying protective orders mean no contact. But you do not have to check that box on a protective order. You can actually do a no harmful contact protective order and you can do the distance from the location as zero feet. So guess what you get to be in the house. I haven't seen a lot of those though, probably because maybe I'm the only one doing that, but actually just kind of an old story. I had a defense attorney call me one day like oh my God, my guy was at the border with the subject of an old story. I had a defense attorney call me one day like oh my God, my guy was at the border with the subject of a protective order. Consensually there was no conflict going on and they arrested him coming back into the US with his wife because he was in contact.
Speaker 3:But I said no, no, no, that's not right, for whatever reason. I happen to remember this case. I said I did zero feet, they can be around each other, and so and they? I guess the lawyer was able to get the officers to look at it and the guy got released. But people just assume a protective order means no contact. But one thing I'm always aware of, and in general, it does, and in general it does, and you should always follow protective orders.
Speaker 4:Absolutely.
Speaker 3:But because I've seen plenty of cases I'm sure y'all have too where people are driving in a car together they have the condition of no contact. They do have their protective order and they get pulled over for registration and then the officer IDs both people finds out they're not supposed to be in contact and then that person gets arrested on a violation of protective order which could be a felony or a misdemeanor.
Speaker 4:It's another class A, yeah, and the difficult thing about protective orders is, I mean, the reason behind them makes absolute sense. If you have somebody who's a victim of family violence, you want to give them, you know, an opportunity to maybe get away from the person that's being abusive to them. But there are plenty of instances where you have a husband and wife, maybe that go out and have a few drinks, things get out of hand, the police get involved and now one of the parties can't come home for 60 days, and then maybe they're raising kids together or you know they can't afford to go stay somewhere else.
Speaker 3:Right and that always is something in my mind is I'd hate, I'd hate, I hate for someone, one, to add more stress to the relationship that's clearly already having stress, and two, displacing someone. So where I really struggle with protective orders is you may have, like, a special needs or mental health adult child living with a parent and because they're having some sort of breakdown or issues, they may pick up an ag assault for threatening grandma with a knife, but it's really more of a mental health issue and this person can't function on their own.
Speaker 3:They truly have to live with their family to survive.
Speaker 2:But you don't have a discretion on that. Well, I can do the zero oh there you go, and I think that's what's key.
Speaker 3:That is the key thing is you can't have a blanket rule.
Speaker 4:That's it.
Speaker 3:Because this is already someone in distress that probably needs better services than they're already getting. And then you have this protective order, where it creates a cycle of constant arrests. It's a little concerning.
Speaker 4:Well, and it's good to know that there are magistrates who take that view and view the case as an individual case with specific facts and circumstances that are unique to that case, as opposed to, like you said, just a blanket rule where everything's going to get this.
Speaker 3:Right, that's my approach, because the consequences are too great.
Speaker 2:Absolutely so I got to ask this because we get a lot of calls from those clients who have the family violence case and the emergency protective order saying we want to get the emergency protective order removed, which we always tell them we don't do that Right, but so so what would they have to do to try to do that, if it's even possible?
Speaker 3:So my understanding has been a minute since I've discussed this is because if a city judge issues that protective order, there has to be a hearing with that same city judge about withdrawing or recalling the protective order.
Speaker 2:So yeah, that's why you have to set it up in municipal court. By the time you get it set up, the time has expired. It makes no sense. Every once in a while I've seen somebody actually go and get it taken off.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and you definitely can. The bigger issue is if the DA's office or the victim in the case decides to follow through with the two-year protective order.
Speaker 2:So the emergency protective order, yeah I mean the only way you're going to get it removed is if the victim is saying she wants it removed.
Speaker 3:Right, there's no way. Oh right, in the emergency yeah.
Speaker 4:No, I would agree. So, with regard to this timeframe for the arrest that we were talking about, you know these are circumstances where somebody is maybe arrested by is it SAPD?
Speaker 3:SAPD. Occasionally a trooper will come, but every other agency goes straight to Bexar County.
Speaker 4:Straight to Bexar County Jail and they have their same process that they do over there at the Bexar County Jail.
Speaker 3:They do exactly have the same. It is the exact same process. There's a 24-hour DA there that's reviewing cases. The officers book people, they turn in their reports.
Speaker 2:It's just that it's not the double barrel that they have to go through, or the bus ride, correct.
Speaker 4:It's not that additional six to eight hours, you're kind of already there so so is there any advice that you would give to, maybe, a loved one who has you know they're saying, hey, my son was just arrested. You know how long is this going? To be very frustrated, I feel that people that work within the systems.
Speaker 3:maybe, if you call too much, things may get slower. Yes, oh wow, okay.
Speaker 4:I mean, I'm just, being true, it's true, it's a hundred percent true.
Speaker 2:If you make a pain in the ass out of yourself, it's not going to go quicker.
Speaker 3:I had a client tell me that he at the county was ready to be released and the officer said I don't like how you're looking at me. You think this is funny? Go sit down and kept him for two more hours, Wow, and had all the paperwork ready to go there.
Speaker 4:So and some of this is why people get frustrated with the criminal justice.
Speaker 3:Of course it's very unfair and not not the right. And the county also releases people in batches, so they don't If you don't make one batch.
Speaker 2:You got to wait for the next.
Speaker 3:You got to wait for the next.
Speaker 4:And what is, and give me the timeframe on that. Like, if you don't make one batch, when is the next batch coming? That I actually don't know. Is it at a certain number of people or?
Speaker 3:I honestly don't know. I don't know what that is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but. But what we're talking about here goes back to what we said the very first episode Don't be a jerk if you want things to go better for you, absolutely. I understand that we're saying it's not fair for people to do that, but karma exists.
Speaker 3:Well, and you're just in the system. Sometimes you have to let go. So if this is where you're at, it's frustrating, but you've truly lost any control of the decisions you're making.
Speaker 4:And it's a process, and they control of the decisions you're making. And it's a process and they have to. Like you said at the beginning hey, whether you're guilty or not guilty, there's this process that's going to play out, that you're going to have to take part in. And that's what we're discussing, yeah.
Speaker 3:And that's so. That's my best advice is just be patient.
Speaker 2:You're going to get out, but it's going to take longer than you feel, Because later on we can fight all these issues in court, but at this point, where you're doing it and the county magistrate doing it, there's nothing to make that go away, besides a magistrate looking and saying there's no probable cause. There's no way an attorney can come rattling down there and saying I want this case to all go away.
Speaker 3:Right, exactly, I've had many arrested people say to me no, if you look at my phone, you'll see the text message. They want to share their side of the story.
Speaker 4:Right, they want to put on their case.
Speaker 3:And this is just not that opportunity. I tell them my job is to read the officer's report and if I think the officer's report is credible then I can find probable cause. Now I have had an instance where I read an officer's report that I did not find credible.
Speaker 2:And so I rejected that case. So it is possible in reviewing cases, but not because of anything that the person arrested is going to say. It's about the reports and stuff.
Speaker 3:Sometimes they will say something where I maybe start digging a little deeper, just like okay, well, this is an interesting question, but the one that stands out the most in my mind recently is a 17-year-old girl with a black eye was arrested for assaulting her older boyfriend and she was pregnant.
Speaker 4:So girl with a black eye was arrested for assaulting her older boyfriend and she was pregnant, and so where's, where did the black eye come from then?
Speaker 3:right, apparently, and it was in the report. Well, and she had made the call saying he was assaulting her and, based on their investigation where he had a scratch on the side of his body, they chose to arrest her. Wow, just a bad call. I'm right. I'm sorry, that is not the right. I felt the officer's report was incredible, because how can you say this was the aggressor and so that's like a case I rejected.
Speaker 4:And then, by rejecting that case, that person doesn't have to go through the additional 12 to 24 hours going over to the Bay County Jail.
Speaker 2:Right, exactly. Nor do they have to pose bond, nor do they have to show up to court and somebody refiles it later down the line. Right.
Speaker 4:Which hopefully in that circumstance they didn't, or hopefully if somebody from SAPD did file it with the intake section as an at-large case.
Speaker 2:The intake prosecutor would look at this and say this is bull.
Speaker 3:Yeah, hopefully.
Speaker 4:Or hopefully they had a supervisor like Scott Simpson who said hey, what are you doing? Accepting this? What are you doing with this? So one thing I did want to discuss is we talked about some of these offenses like what people would think of as tickets, and we call those class C misdemeanors, and those are offenses that you can only. The only thing that can happen to you is you would have to pay a fine of up to $500.
Speaker 3:Correct, but they're still able to hold you in jail for a certain amount of time.
Speaker 4:Right, so you could be arrested.
Speaker 3:You can be arrested. Public intoxication I feel like every friend has a good story of a night in the drunk tank. That's your go-to. Sounds like Scott has.
Speaker 2:No, I'm not a drinker, I'm just a jerk but alcohol gets below a certain level. So it really is the drunk take.
Speaker 3:It really is the drunk take.
Speaker 4:And they do have their own cell at the city jail that they sit at, so it's kind of like the old Andy Griffith show, where they would put Otis in the little jail and let him sleep it off.
Speaker 3:And there are regulars, for sure, and the nurses go every couple hours, have them breathalyzed, for sure, and the nurses go every couple of hours, have them breathalyzed. What's interesting is the chronic alcoholics. They don't wait until they're under the 0.08 because of the medical concerns. So if it's a chronic alcoholic and they come in very high, they're like, oh okay, they're like a 0.1. They're safe to go. So it's interesting. But your people are usually there for eight hours for your PI assault. Class Csfts under $100 are class C.
Speaker 4:So somebody shoplifting at the Walmart, they can be taken into custody, they could yes, and the officer has discretion, so what?
Speaker 2:do you think? Obviously, you only see the ones that are taken into custody, but you get your share of class C thefts that do come before you right.
Speaker 3:Yes, and also if you have traffic warrants, you get arrested and taken to the city jail. So I do manage that docket as well and see all those people and they also can be there for eight hours and are not happy about it, I do have a burning question.
Speaker 2:So you've been back to look at these cells where they're being held. Yes, so do you have to?
Speaker 3:go to the bathroom in front of everybody else. In that cell there's a privacy wall, a little wall. I mean it's not that private, okay, but it's private enough.
Speaker 2:As private as it's going to get.
Speaker 3:Right the funny thing is.
Speaker 4:I think everybody wonders about that, whether they say it or not. Everybody wonders if I get arrested and go to jail, do I have to use the bathroom in front?
Speaker 3:of everybody else. You do and people are very comfortable. I'm sure the regulars are like hey, and just an interesting issue for women versus men is men don't always need toilet paper. Well, women do. They don't give you toilet paper in these cells because of issues of clogging the toilet and maybe just not acting materially. So if you need toilet paper, you have to ask for it.
Speaker 2:Wow, okay, so they will give it to you, if you ask yes, yes. Okay, I was panicking there.
Speaker 3:Yes, If you ask nicely, they will give you toilet paper that makes sense.
Speaker 2:So like give me some effing toilet paper.
Speaker 4:Is anybody going to get a response? Probably not, okay.
Speaker 3:Hanging on the window doesn't ever work. That makes for an even longer stay.
Speaker 4:So, lauren, we appreciate you coming on. So you Got Arrested. I would remind our audience. If you ever have questions, you can reach out to us at justarrestedpodcast at gmailcom. Just email us. Let us know what topics you want discussed, if you have questions that you want us to address on the show. This is Scott Simpson, lauren Lefton and Steve Barrera. Thank you for listening.
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