00:13

Speaker 1
Welcome to Leo Roundtable at leoroundtable.com. My name is Chip The Block and I'm your host for a group of law enforcement professionals that talk about today's news and issues, but we do it from a law enforcement perspective. Let me introduce the crew, guys. If you don't mind waiting for the video portion of our show, we have attorney Anthony Bandiro. He is a search and seizure expert. He is also with Blue to Gold at bluetogold.com, so thanks so much for, uh, being here, Anthony. Also, we have Dr. Joel Schultz, retired police chief, um, somewhere in the great state of Colorado. So, thanks gentlemen. Also, a shout-out to our sponsors. We have our title sponsor, Galls at galls.com, complianttechnologies.com, our satellite sponsor.

00:51

Speaker 1
We also have gunlearn.com, mymedicare.live, safewayrecruiting.com, our streaming sponsor, and thanks to them, uh, we're streaming to close to a million followers right now on social media during the live show, and also, twobells.com, they built a new online store at leoroundtable.com. If you want cool gear like the mug behind me here or shirts, hats, all kinds of stuff, uh, go to our website, leoroundtable.com. Upper right-hand corner, you'll see the online store. We don't charge anything extra for the gear. We're just trying to get our stuff out there. It's dirt cheap. So, check that out. And, uh, a shout-out to Brian Burns for the Tampa Free Press at tampafe.com. Thanks for carrying our content, Brian, and getting on, getting us on MSN. Also, Ray Dietrich, with formerlawman.com, and our very own Travis Chase with lawofficer.com. Thanks to all those entities for helping make this show happen. And here's what we're gonna be talking about today, guys.

01:35

Speaker 1
We got two main stories, uh, back-to-back. The first one is headlight mistake does not dim the lights on police authority. We've got a ruling by the Ohio Supreme Court, um, and it, it, it... Look, it may be common sense for some people, uh, but these things pop up every once in a while. Anthony Bandiro's gonna, uh, this is his wheelhouse. He's gonna dumb it down for us just to make sure that even cops, especially in smaller agencies, they know what they're doing. And then we've got an army of radical prosecutors. They all have one thing in common, uh, you know, I've got, I've, I've, I've got your, your attention now, don't I? And we've got a companion article to that. It is Bench Trial: New Bill Aims to Strip Judges of Legal Immunity for Freeing Dangerous Criminals. Everybody always complains about cops having, uh, qualified immunity, which of course, in the very name says we have to qualify for it, but, you know, judges, they get... What do they get? Yeah. They get absolute immunity.

02:27

Speaker 1
So, uh, yeah. We're gonna be talking about that. We've got an update story. Ex-NYPD officer, we've been covering this, he gets three-to-nine years in prison. What did he do to get three-to-nine years in prison? He threw a cooler at a bad guy during a buy-bust operation that was fleeing and headed towards a crowd of people on, like, a scooter or something, and he, and he crashed and died, so we're gonna be talking about that. We got body cam video. We're hopping down to Miami-Dade County now. Uh, we have a deputy fatally shooting a woman that's armed with a knife. Then we got Woodbridge Police sergeant. He's indicted in a fatal 2025 shooting i- involving a, a guy with a baseball bat. That one might be problematic. We may, we may have to talk a little bit about that one. We got a former, uh, Army employee in North Carolina. He's arrested for a massive classified leak to a journalist. And I said, I said "he". It's actually, it's actually a "she".

03:17

Speaker 1
Uh, then we got, uh, Louisville Metro Police Department body cams showing police fatally shooting a woman holding a glass object, and I believe it was, uh, part of the porcelain toilet she broke off in the bathroom before she ran out at police with it. And then, if we have time to get to it, we have Minneapolis there. They're pushing to legalize, of all things, sex bathhouses for gay Somali immigrants. You heard that correctly, right?

03:40

Speaker 2
Finally.

03:40

Speaker 1
If you guys are just... Yeah. Yeah. (laughs) Yeah, Anthony. I mean, yeah. You guys, you, you, you did hear that correctly, so... And at the end of the show, if you guys stick around and watch, in case we do have any gay Somali, uh, immigrants, uh, that want any legal representation, I'll have Anthony hold his number up for you guys so you can contact him. Uh, so if you guys are ready, let's go ahead and get this party started. Uh, Tampa Free Press at tampafe.com. Our buddy, Brian Burns, has that publication. Headlight mistake does not dim the lights on police authority according to the Ohio Supreme Court in a ruling that they have. So, in a decision that is clarifying the boundaries of police power during roadside encounters, the US Supreme... Or, I'm sorry, the Ohio Supreme Court, they ruled on Tuesday that officers can, uh, continue a traffic stop even after they realize that the initial reason for the stop was a mistake. Now, I'll, uh...

04:29

Speaker 1
I- in case you guys are wondering what circumstances that could happen, I- I'll tell you. It's called State versus Phipps. That's P-h-I-P as in pull, S. And this happened back in December of 2018. We're talking about Cleveland Police officers. We got Officer Garon Rose, and he had a partner. They stopped this guy named Quintin Phipps. Thus, that's why we have State versus Phipps, for our Portland, uh, listeners. And, uh... Did you pick up on that? That was pretty cool, Anthony, wasn't it? Yeah. Yeah. I, yeah. I'm on my A game today, buddy. The officers believed that Phipps was driving with a, with a dead headlight, okay? So for Portland, that means that one headlight was out. So however, as they approached the vehicle, they realized that the headlights were actually working. It was actually a fog light that was out, so that's the mistake they made o- on the, on the... And I, I say...

05:11

Speaker 1
I shouldn't have used, really used the word mistake, but they stopped him believing they had one justification for it, and, and it changed, but they've already stopped the guy. So despite the mix-up, Officer Rose, he continues with the encounter. He asked the driver for his driver's license. Our driver admits that he didn't have it on him, and he provides his name and social security number to the officer. So the officer does a check, and it shows that Phipps is driving on a suspended driver's license, and not only that, he had an active warrant for his arrest. So, because of that, search institute all- to, uh, a lawful arrest, and of course, I guess the key is whether it's lawful or not, they search the vehicle. They find crack cocaine, digital scale. This guy is sentenced eventually to five years in prison on drug charges.

05:52

Speaker 1
And so, the central question for this for the justices is whether or not the evidence found in the car should have been thrown out, because the officer's or- original reason for the stop, you know, the broken headlight, it turned out to be wrong. So, the appellate court, uh...If you guys are listening, they actually sided with Phipps, um, and, and I'm gonna call him the bad guy. He was a, you know, he was a drug, a drug user and everything, a- and he went to prison. So, they sided with the defendant, arguing that once the officer saw the headlights worked, the mission of the stop was over and our bad guy should have been allowed to leave. But the Ohio Supreme Court disagreed. A- and writing for the majority, we have Justice Joseph Dieters. He explained that checking a driver's license status, it's standard part of any traffic stop and, um, he explained under the Sup- the, uh, the United States Supreme Court, he talks about precedent.

06:41

Speaker 1
I'm gonna stop going down the rabbit hole because I wanna... I, I know Anthony's gonna explain this much better than the article did. Uh, but it was, it was interesting though. It was not a unanimous decision for the, uh, for the Supreme Court. So Anthony, if you're willing to jump in here and take it over, the floor is yours.

06:58

Speaker 3
Yeah. I'll take this. So, th- there's, there's two things. Th- the decision here is correct, but some of the logic is incorrect. So, the first thing we have to, um, clarify is that actually, the officers did not know that the headlight was working at the time that they asked Phipps for his license. That, that is important. But the first thing is that there are two mistakes. There's mistake of law and mistake of fact. A mistake of law is when you, wh- when the cop does not know what the law is. Like, so for example, he thought that, um, that the law said that two, people have to have two working brake lights, but really the law wa- is only, is only one. Do we give the cop a pass on that? Probably not, usually. Right? But here is what we have what's called a mistake of law. So, when you... U- a mistake of fact. So when you said mistake, well, actually it is a mistake. They, he thought the guy had only one working headlight. That was clearly not correct. It was, uh, a factual issue.

07:52

Speaker 3
And now the question is, was that reasonable? Well, the o- the court here held that it was reasonable based on what the officer saw that, that he, he, you know, um, objectively believed that the headlight was not functioning. Whether, if you were the judge, Chip, and you would agree with that or not, it all depends on what you see in the video, what the cop says and so forth. So now we got past that first hurdle, right? The second hurdle is when they went up to that car and they told Phipps, you know, why they stopped him and, and so forth and they asked for his driver's license, is that appropriate? And the answer is yes. We can, we can, n- almost always ask for identification when we're contacting somebody with reasonable suspicion, if that's what we have here. Um, and Phipps then says something very incriminating. He said that he doesn't have it.

08:37

Speaker 3
So, did that give the officer, doesn't have it on him and so forth, w- would that alone give the officer reasonable suspicion that Phipps may not have a license? Well, first of all, not having a license on your person is a crime in most states. Most states have a surrender upon demand statute that says if you're stopped during a traffic stop, you must surrender upon demand. Well, he's violating that law 'cause, but, you know, he's... Th- they're not really demanding which we're gonna talk about but regardless, it is a indicator that he has no license at all which is, end up being true. So, the court sai- said that because the, the, the officer asked, and that's the key word, is asked, he asked for a license, you know, while he's investigating the headlight vi- uh, infraction, that that was part of the mission of the stop. Then learning later that the headlight was actually not in op, did not defeat the original reasonable suspicion he had. So, the question though is this, okay?

09:31

Speaker 3
Every single case, whether it's Ohio, whether it's other cases, every single case that has dealt with this whole, "Hey, I'm gonna ask you for your license, you know, even though the, it's the reasonable suspicion has been dispelled or I haven't gotten to that yet and so forth," every single case has always put their... hung, hung their hat on asking a person for their license. To me, the problem with this case is that seems to indicate, if you read the actual logic is that you can demand it, and if you do not provide it, it can have... it can, it results in your arrest. And I know we only have a couple minutes left but let me just give you the real conundrum, okay? And you tell me Chip, a- and, and Joel, right, if you agree. The real problem is this. You stop a vehicle for, you know, let's say it doesn't have expired registration. He says, "Well actually, I do have registration. There's... L- look in the back of the window where it's supposed to be, in the windshield in some states.

10:24

Speaker 3
It's actually valid." And the cop says, "Well look, I, I appreciate you telling me that, but before I look at that tag or headlight, I want you to give me your license." He says, "Look..." He's a 10 and two guy, right? He says, "Hey, I'm not gonna give it to you because I've done nothing wrong. In fact, my headlight works. It's legit, right? I checked it this morning. I always check-

10:41

Speaker 1
Right.

10:41

Speaker 3
... "my horn and my, my headlights." And he says, "I wanna... I want you to check it and if it works, I want you to let me go." What do you think cops should do in that case? Should they take it to the mat and say, "Look, you're not going anywhere until you give me your license and if you don't give me your license, you're going to go to jail"? I think we have a problem there, Chip. And I think that that's the problem because-

10:59

Speaker 1
Agree.

10:59

Speaker 3
Yeah. And, and so it's like, it's like the, you know, the standoff issue and it's like, what is the governmental interest there? We still only have reasonable suspicion and how is that license gonna solve the headlight issue? And that's the problem with this case is it seems to be, it seems to in, in what's called dicta. Dicta is, is where courts say things that are like, um... it's like conver- it's like what... it's like the words they choose but it's not necessary for the holding. Here, the cop asks for his license before resolving the headlight issue but they're saying because driving licensing is a mission, is part of every stop, you can almost demand in a sense for every stop.

11:37

Speaker 3
That's a problem and know we, uh-

11:38

Speaker 1
Yeah.

11:38

Speaker 3
... we have to go to break soon, but that's gonna be the, the real million dollar-

11:42

Speaker 1
It-

11:42

Speaker 3
... question.

11:43

Speaker 1
And I, I thought the argument from the, from the sole judge was interesting too that went against the others but, um, guys, we got just seconds before we take our first commercial break. We're coming right back to this story. Stick with us. We'll be right back. My family only cares about one thing, that I come home safe.

12:00

Speaker 4
At Galls, every order begins with a promise made with purpose.Stitched for support. Back with pride. Answered by dedicated hands. Delivering the standard you have sworn to uphold. We serve more than the mission. We serve the person. Each piece is engineered to help get our first responders through the shift and back home safe.

12:53

Speaker 1
Welcome back. Leo Roundtable at leoroundtable.com, the law enforcement talk show. My name is Chip DeBlock, and I'm your host. We're joined by Dr. Joel Schultz, who went out of order, yes, I did, former police chief, and we got attorney Anthony Bandiro. He is the founder of Blue the Gold at bluethegold.com. And we're talking about some search and seizure stuff, and, uh, you know, a headlight mistake does not dim the lights on police authority according to the Ohio Supreme Court. Anthony Bandiro has been, uh, breaking that down for us. And, uh, guys, uh, I know we went, you were still talking, Anthony, I think when we went to commercial break, so, uh, just pick up where you left off. I know, uh, uh, Chief Schultz has got his o- his mic open too. Go ahead, guys.

13:28

Speaker 3
Well, look, I'll, I'll just end off with this. So th- the case, there's a, you know, for those cops that are listening out there, the, the case represents this idea, and it's a- it's 100% correct, that during a reasonable suspicion stop of a motor vehicle, whether it's for a lice... uh, a headlight issue, a registration issue, whate- or, you know, um, you thought... you ran the tag, it came back with a, with a, a registered owner that has a warrant and you don't know who's driving 'cause it's at night, tint the windows, absolutely you go up to the vehicle, and you're like, "Oh, okay. It, it was a, you know, a, a, a white male that has the warrant, but here it's a, it's a female that's driving." Clearly, you don't have reasonable suspicion anymore, but can you still ask that person, "Hey, before I let you go, can I see your license?" But he or she says, "You know what? I wanna leave. I had done no- nothing wrong." What should the cop do?

14:18

Speaker 3
My advice is that ultimately, at the US Supreme Court, they're gonna say, "You should let the person go because we're working under Terry rules, not PC rules, and when Terry says that you're supposed to" once the suspicion has been dispelled, "you're supposed to release the person so they can have back their freedom," there is no governmental, overriding governmental interest strong enough to justify an arrest. 'Cause that's ultimately what we're saying here is that, "If you don't give me your license, I will arrest you on the authority of law." Why are we taking somebody to the hoosegow for simply not doing something that they don't... it's not part of the investigation? And that's really my point. But I will tell you, Chip, many cops disagree with that.

14:56

Speaker 1
Well, you, you're saying, you're not saying they, they don't... they're not aware of it. You're saying that they're aware and they disagree still?

15:01

Speaker 3
They, they, they, they disagree with the idea that you can d- you cannot demand-

15:05

Speaker 1
Really?

15:05

Speaker 3
...ID. Because they'll, they'll... but w- you ask them why. "Well, because we wanna make sure they can drive," right? "We wanna make sure."

15:12

Speaker 1
(laughs)

15:12

Speaker 3
Well, you, you can't make sure of anything if it implicates a person's rights. We have a case called Delaware vers- Delaware versus Prause, where cops were randomly stopping people in Delaware to make sure they had a license.

15:23

Speaker 1
(laughs)

15:23

Speaker 3
Because they had a known-

15:24

Speaker 1
Wow.

15:24

Speaker 3
...they had a driving without license problem. We all do, right?

15:27

Speaker 1
Wow.

15:27

Speaker 3
We all do.

15:27

Speaker 1
Yeah.

15:27

Speaker 3
I mean, look at the... Do you think the Somalians have a lot of driver's licenses? So maybe they do, actually. It's Minnesota. They probably got it on the way there, so...

15:35

Speaker 1
(laughs)

15:35

Speaker 3
But the point is, is that I'm from Vegas. Like, half the people there don't have a valid license, okay? So there is a government interest to try to make sure people have licenses, I guess. But you can't do it that way. So they'll say that, and finally, Chip, they'll say, "Well, our law says that if we stop somebody, we can demand their license." I say, "Yes, but the legislative intent wasn't for reasonable suspicion.

15:56

Speaker 3
It was for traffic tickets."

15:58

Speaker 1
Hmm. Yeah. And of course, you can ask somebody for anything, you know?

16:02

Speaker 3
Correct.

16:02

Speaker 1
But once they... but if you have a, if you have... let's just say you have a motorist, a civilian watching this show and saying, "Ah, if it's a... if they did... if they stopped me on a false pretense or just something they thought was legit and I correct them," the key is, is that you brought up a perfect example on, "I want you to go check my headlight first before I give you my driver's license" stuff. Now, that puts the cop in a situation where you can still ask for the driver's license, but anything that comes after that, you're not gonna be, you know, uh, you're not gonna be able to, to go forward on, because it, it, it does... but at least, at least you're getting the cop to think about it now. The ones that are listening to the show, at least. But I, I can't believe there's some guys that still disagree. They can't see the... they can't, they can't get that. They just can't understand that.

16:39

Speaker 3
No, 'cause, well, they're, they're machines. They, they're, they're, they're, they're traffic officers. You know, "You have to give me your license." They don't think about the constitutional dimension here. But, but I will tell you, before... I want to hear what the chief has to say, but I will tell you that when you ask these cops... So let me just make sure I understand what you're saying. You know, I'm... it's not confrontational, by the way, because most cops respect what I'm trying to tell them. But they just don't understand that. But I... all right. Let me just make sure I understand. If they have done nothing wrong, they're not giving indicators of no license, "I, I think I have a bad license. I may have a warrant." If they're not saying anything suspicious, are you gonna take them to jail for not giving you a license?

17:10

Speaker 3
"Well, I wouldn't do that." Then you just answered your question because you're saying-

17:13

Speaker 1
(laughs)

17:13

Speaker 3
... you don't have the lawful authority to demand it.

17:15

Speaker 1
Good point.

17:16

Speaker 3
And, and, and, and make it so, right?

17:18

Speaker 1
If we only had a doctor on the show that could answer this dilemma.

17:22

Speaker 3
(laughs)

17:22

Speaker 1
Provide some input.

17:22

Speaker 3
I have, actually, an il- I have a, like, a, a, an itch right here, Doctor. Are you that kind of doctor?

17:26

Speaker 1
(laughs)

17:26

Speaker 3
I have an itch right now.

17:27

Speaker 5
I could... I've got an ointment. I've got an ointment for you.

17:29

Speaker 3
Okay. Well, tell me-

17:30

Speaker 5
Um.

17:30

Speaker 3
... about the offline.

17:32

Speaker 1
Thanks.

17:32

Speaker 5
Um, you know, I, I just... I think it's so interesting that, um, traffic contacts and, and to a lesser extent pedestrian contacts take up so much of Fourth Amendment law, uh, because people have the basic right to be left alone. Um, and cops may tend to think that, uh, "I'm the police, so you've got to cooperate 100%." But-

17:56

Speaker 3
Yep.

17:56

Speaker 5
... y- you know, your authority doesn't come from the fact that you've got a badge. Your authority comes from the Constitution and the, and the, and the laws of the state. Um, and so, so a couple of things I would say. For the civilians in the audience, they might tend to think, "Well, the guy had dope in his car. You can't, uh, you know, let this guy off because..." Well, yeah, because the dope in the car is irrelevant if, you know, the sequence-

18:15

Speaker 3
Right.

18:15

Speaker 5
...of contacts is, uh, is there. And, and for the cops that are watching...Um, you know, if, if, if, if... Th- there's n- there's a good illustration here of the importance of, uh, report writing. You know, the, the conditions that y- that you, uh, uh, made your observations, the timing of what you said, um, the point at which you might have seen a plain view, uh, kinda thing to extend the stop. Uh, traffic stops are, are, uh, you know, very, uh, uh, highly observed because it's something that touches almost every American. I know I've been pulled over. And I don't, I don't badge my way out. I've got my share of tickets. Um, a- and, uh, so, so report writing is really important. Uh, understanding your constitutional boundaries, as, as Anthony, uh, pointed out. Um, and there's, there's a lot of, um, you know, people that are resisting.

19:10

Speaker 5
You know, "I don't need to s- show you my driver's license." And, and are you gonna get to the point where you're gonna, you know, engage in a pursuit or break out a window? You better have a pretty good foundation before you, before you do something like that. So, um, it's really important to kinda know what, what your, what your standing is when you, when you come up on something. You cannot assume that there's gonna be, uh, compliance. Now, 30 years ago, or 30... No, take that back. 40 years (laughs) ago, uh, w- when I started at... Well, let's go 45.

19:38

Speaker 5
When I started in police work-

19:39

Speaker 1
(laughs)

19:39

Speaker 5
... you could just randomly pull o- p- pull people over to see if they had a driver's license. Um, and, and that obviously didn't, uh, didn't survive, uh, extens- uh, or, or, uh, uh-

19:50

Speaker 1
Yeah, scrutiny.

19:50

Speaker 5
... examination by the law, yeah.

19:52

Speaker 1
Mm-hmm.

19:52

Speaker 5
So, and, um, and, you know, we, we've had recent cases about, uh... well, long, uh, uh, history of cases about pretextual stops. Um, and then I don't think this was a pretext stop. Um, and, wh- w- I, I'm surprised there wasn't a fear expressed somewhere on the line about cops saying, "Oops, I didn't know, uh, that I was mistaken," kinda like the old dropsy thing in New York City. "I saw something fall out of their pocket, so..."

20:22

Speaker 1
Right.

20:22

Speaker 5
You know, it justified a search.

20:24

Speaker 1
Hold that thought, Chief. Commercial break. We'll be right back. All right, guys. Time to talk about Comply Technologies at complytechnologies.com. And they are committed to providing non-lethal solutions to help officers gain the upper hand safely and rapidly in a humane, low-ontics manner, utilizing what they call their CD3, which stands for Conductive Distraction and De-escalation Device technology. Now, their flagship product, we all know by now, it's called the Glove. It's not only helped officers tens of thousands of times, but they've actually had over 250,000 deployments, no injuries, no deaths. It's an amazing statistic. They've actually achieved non-lethal status in an arena that predominantly can only offer less lethal results. And when it comes to weapons retention, transition to a sidearm or a protective energy weapon, the Glove at complytechnologies.com, they have virtually eliminated weapons confusion.

21:08

Speaker 1
So stay ahead of the game with Comply Technologies and their revolutionary CD3 that hundreds of agencies have already turned to nationwide. And friends, take it from me, when it comes to safety, this is one of the most common sense, hands-on solutions that's ever come along. So go to the complytechnologies.com today, and tell them that Chip sent you. Again, that is complytechnologies.com. Welcome back. Leo Roundtable at leoroundtable.com, the Law Enforcement Talk Show. We're joined by Attorney Anthony Bandiera from Blue to Gold and also Dr. Joel Schultz, retired Police Chief. And wow, i- it's been a fascinating discussion talking about the Ohio Supreme Court and, uh, and, and, and the Appellate Court got it wrong, but, uh, they, uh, they, you know, they, they got it right and Anthony did a great job about explaining it to us. So, hopefully the cops... Look, even...

21:51

Speaker 1
I don't care what agency you're with, this is a g- I think this is a really great topic 'cause it, it gets you, it gets you thinking, you know, because there are, there are some sharp citizens out there and you can, you c- (laughs) you know, when you get called on some stuff you're doing, sometimes, you know, you just better be paying attention, you know, so that you don't get yourself in the grease. So, I, I think this was fascinating. Any, any final words on this, Anthony, before we go to the next topic? No, I think, I think we, uh, covered it pretty well an- in my opinion All right. No, I, I agree. And, uh, and also between the, uh, uh... during the commercial segments, too, we had some great conversations about it, so thanks. Our next one is, uh, it's a little different. Still the main topic. We have, uh, Tampa Free Press at tampabee.com. We have a, a army of radical prosecutors. They all have one thing in common. Now, th- we got two stories.

22:33

Speaker 1
I'm gonna go through this quickly 'cause I wanna make sure that we have some stories, uh, a story or two with a video component. But we have high-profile controversies involving progressive district attorneys. And remember, we have two articles. But these progressive DAs, they're increasingly dominating the headlines across the country, uh, releasing primarily... We're talking about releasing violent repeat offenders and targeting police, uh, to clashing with federal immigration enforcement and prompting questions about which, which driving the surge. Also, violent crime is a leading concern among voters in, in 2024. Of course, you know, the presidential election, we know what happened there. The role of progressive policies has since drawn national attention. They're talking about, uh, Vice President JD Vance condemning the agenda of far-left prosecutors, uh, that are being backed by far-away billionaires as he put it.

23:19

Speaker 1
And, of course, everybody's thinking about George Soros and, uh, and, and no tolerance... You know, the, the current administration has no, I think, arguably no tolerance for lawlessness. And these leftist DAs have frequently used their offices to push increasingly radical policies. That's not a shock. Even NBC News has acknowledged a broadly shared agenda among the left-leaning Democratic district attorneys. And they named people like, uh, DA Jose Garza a- and, and, uh, Larry Krasner, all kinds of stuff. Um, and then th- the companion article that we've got, uh, it says that there's a new bill aiming to strip judges of legal immunity for freeing dangerous criminals. That, I find very interesting. Senator, uh, Tim Shea and, uh, they're talking about the judicial accountability for irresponsible leniency or the Jail Act is what it's called.

24:02

Speaker 1
It's a move to hold members of the bench personally, personally responsible for the consequences of their sentencing and bail decisionsAnd the proposal comes to the response to several high-profile cases. These individuals that we're talking about were released on bond, or they had lenient sentences, and they went on to commit violent acts shortly after they returned to the community. And during a Saturday interview on Fox News, uh, she explained that the bill is targeting the concept of judicial immunity, or what we call absolute immunity, which currently protects judges from civil lawsuits regarding their official rulings. And it passed this JAIL Act, and of course, JAIL is the acronym. It would remove this shield a- a- and causing a gross negligent according, negligence according to the article, allowing victims and their families to pursue civil action against these judges whose decision to release a violent offender led to further crime.

24:51

Speaker 1
I, I, I find it, uh, I find it, uh, I found the whole, the fi- the whole process and the discussion about this thing going through, I kind of find it fascinating. Because, you know, historically, people corner me about, you know, uh, you know, cops having, you know, qualified immunity, and they just simply don't understand. They forget about the first word being qualified. They don't understand how it works. They kind of treat it like it's almost like absolute. But they're, they don't even realize that the judges and the prosecutors get this absolute immunity thing, a- a- and now being a- able to hold... they're not wiping away absolute immunity, but when it comes to releasing offenders, you know, prematurely, or not going, you know, uh, heavy enough on the sentence, and then holding them accountable personally on that, and opening up the door for the civil litigation, wow. Um, commentary on this, guys? We got a little over six minutes before we take our next break. Attorney Anthony?

25:37

Speaker 3
I... Look, I, I, I, I like the idea of accountability. I like the idea of fixing some of the problems that we have. Certainly, you have a lot of judges out there that are not doing their job. But I have not looked into this issue, but I'm automatically, uh, my, my, f- my reaction is that I'm a little suspect that this is the right solution to hold a judge personally liable. Because, you know, what's good for the goose is good for the gander. Like, okay, yeah, you can definitely take your extreme cases and your judges that clearly are just, um, you know, not following the law and so forth, but also, you know, one m- one man's gross negligence could be another person's just mere negligence. Like, at what point you, you're gonna personally hold this per- you're gonna, you're gonna hold this person liable for a, a, a, a, a different criminal act? I don't know. I think, to me, my, my reaction here is, look, a couple things.

26:22

Speaker 3
Number one is the, the j- the, um, the judicial system needs to hold themselves accountable, right? Like, the, the judges themselves, like, there is a chief judge, and there is a bar, and those people should also be, you know, impeaching their own 'cause we do, we impeach our own in law enforcement, right?

26:38

Speaker 1
Oh, yeah.

26:38

Speaker 3
It's called IA. But they don't impeach their own. But the other thing is that, really, the, the, the solution here is, is to make it, make the system work no matter who the judge is, which is sentencing guidelines. Right now, there's so much discretion in these guidelines, that you have a person that is, uh, that's able to, um, to put a person that committed an armed robbery on probation without serving any time. So yeah, you can blame the judge, and you should, but why is the legislature allowing that? Because they're the ones that ultimately, um, restrict the judges. They're the ones that have the power. So I don't know. That's my first reaction. I just, I'm very, I gotta be, you gotta be very careful about, "Oh, my God. This is great. This is gonna get that judge in Austin, and it's gonna get that judge in L.A." It's gonna, uh, but it's also could get the judge in South Dakota that just makes a mistake, and people view it as gross, as, as recklessness. I don't know.

27:29

Speaker 3
I, um, I, I don't know. I, I'd be very careful about that. I'm, I'm not f- uh, completely for absolute immunity either, but this one seems a little extreme.

27:38

Speaker 1
Chief?

27:40

Speaker 5
Yeah, I, I agree with both points. Uh, y- you know how, how, uh, we get upset when a civilian looks at a, uh, uh, uh, n- narrated body cam video on YouTube, and oh, we need to crack down on the cops. Well-

27:53

Speaker 1
Mm-hmm.

27:53

Speaker 5
... you know, there, there's some truth to when we see a headline, a 200-word article about what we think is outrageous judicial behavior, and, you know, we don't know the statutory guidelines that, uh, uh, uh, that Anthony pointed out, um, and, uh, so we, we don't always know the backstory. Now, I, I think, you know, for really gross, outrageous behavior, um, balanced against the real need for prosecutorial and judicial, uh, independence, um, you know, there, there maybe sh- should be some new lines drawn. But, but, uh, uh, there, there's a, there's a, a potential trade-off, uh, that we have to be kind of, uh, careful about. I think it's very interesting, um, that the, uh, that the Soros strategy was to start funding local elections. You know, there was a famous politician that said, oh, I can't remember who it was, uh, all politics is local. Might have been Tip O'Neill or something like that, of course.

28:55

Speaker 3
T- T- Tip O'Neill, yeah.

28:56

Speaker 5
Yeah. So for, for, uh, Soros to, to put in, uh, I think, uh, eight- over $8 million in local elections, like, over here in the San Luis Valley, right across them- the, uh, uh, mountain from me, which is where the Costilla County deputies and sheriff were, were just recently charged with bank grand jury, uh, that judicial district over there, with, uh, maybe a total population of, uh, I don't know, 20,000, 25,000, got, got, uh, uh, Democrat, uh, money, um, from national sources. Uh, so, you know, we, the, the individual voters have to be very, very careful about what they're really, um, uh, voting for. Um, and he was recalled, just as an example. So some of these other prosecutors are as well. So there is a, there is a check and balance system. Less so with judges, obviously, because they have long-term appointments. We, Colorado has the Missouri system, where we just vote to whether to retain a judge or not.

29:52

Speaker 5
Um, but voters need to, need to pay attention to that, and, um, uh, and, and, and do our job, rather than just putting some statute there that puts things on autopilot, um, or ties up the court sys- uh, system with, with civil litigation against, uh, judicial officers. Um, I think it's really up to the voters.

30:12

Speaker 1
Well, you, you got a good point, chief. I, as much as I don't like absolute immunity, I've even had an experience where I sued a, uh, state attorney and, um, and I thought I had a righteous case and, and, and I was prevented from doing because of this, uh, and I wasn't even a defendant that he was charging. It was, it was a defamation in character kind of thing and, and I couldn't get, I couldn't get any traction on it. But, uh, these things are created so that we don't have these frivolous lawsuits either, whether it's qualified immunity, absolute immunity, because if, if, if you can sue these guys for anything, it's just gonna bog down the court system and I, and I get it. And Anthony brought up a good point about there are mechanisms in place like the bar, chief judges, there's other mechanisms in place.

30:52

Speaker 1
Maybe they're not operating efficientl- efficiently, but the answer isn't necessarily just to start changing, you know, uh, laws and ordinances in order to make up for the lack, what's lacking somewhere else. So I, I get it. So good discussion guys. Um, if you guys are ready, uh, there is a video that I wanna cover, uh, but I, I do wanna talk about this NYPD cop, um, that's getting three to nine years in prison for the cooler throwing. So abcnews.com, I know we got just less than a minute before we take our third commercial break, but abcnews.com, ex-NYPD officer, no longer an officer. He gets three to nine years in prison because he threw a cooler, um, at a bad guy that was fleeing, causing a fatal crash. And this is not, this is a bonafide bad guy. There's nothing, nothing good about him.

31:35

Speaker 1
Uh, we're in New York, a former New York City police sergeant sentenced on Thursday to three to nine years in prison for tossing a picnic cooler full of drinks at a fleeing suspect, and he was on a motorized scooter, he ended up crashing and dying. The ex-officer, Eric Duran, convicted of manslaughter in the 2023 death of this guy, uh, this bad guy named Eric Dupree. The former sergeant said that he's trying to protect other officers from the approaching scooter. Now, we're gonna go down the rabbit hole on this when we come back from our commercial break, but guys, stick with us. It's gonna be really interesting. We'll be right back. All right, guys. It's time to talk about GunLearn at gunlearn.com. Hey, there's some new news with GunLearn. They've actually partnered with Smarter Degree, and everybody knows that, you know, they've got this degree program with s- with the gunlearn.com, you become a certified firearm specialist.

32:17

Speaker 1
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33:03

Speaker 1
Leo Roundtable at leoroundtable.com, the law enforcement talk show. My name is Chip Devlock and I'm your host. We're joined by Dr. Joel Schless, former police chief, and also attorney Anthony Bandero, founder of the Blue to Gold at bluetogold.com. We've been talking about a former NYPD officer, former, and he is getting three to nine years in prison because he threw a cooler and caused a fatal crash of a guy that was on a, uh, a, uh, a scooter and running away from police. So this all goes down. The ex-officer, Eric Duran, he ended up being convicted of manslaughter in the 2023 death of Eric Dupree. And in court, he says that, "Hey, I took this job to save lives. I felt terrible once I saw that Eric Dupree, I saw him crash." He said that he did everything he could do, um, to try to save the guy after the crash. He said, "I, I, I never wanted this to happen," and he's addressing the family, um, directly in court. And so that's what happened.

33:52

Speaker 1
Now, the judge, Guy Mitchell, he said that he did not accept the ex-sergeant's defense that his actions were justified. And here's a quote from the judge saying, "It is the court's belief that the defendant, Sergeant Duran, was upset that Mr. Dupree was getting away and that he reacted by hurling the cooler at him." Now, Sergeant Duran was immediately taken into custody after the sentencing. His lawyer, Arthur Ardella, said that he, uh, was gonna ask an appeal, uh, for a, for bail, you know, pending the appeal of this. And Sergeant Duran, you know, so that he can be free during the whole process before he has to go to prison perma-, you know, at least for the next, you know, uh, nine years or so. The case has, um, animated police on one hand, and then we've got a- accountability activists on the other.

34:34

Speaker 1
Sergeant Duran's union, the Sergeants Benevolent Association, they say that while there are thousands of officers have signed an online petition asking for him to be spared from prison, officers in the New York Police Department jackets, uh, they had, they, well, they had a huge showing at the courthouse. You had demonstrators that were on the other side of the, of the aisle, uh, but you had a lot more cops that were there. Prosecutors for the State Attorney General Letitia James' office, yeah, that name sounds familiar, Letitia James, um, sought a three to nine-year prison sentence for Sergeant Duran saying that he recklessly caused Dupree's death. So here's how it goes down. Duran was part of a narcotics poli- uh, policing group. They're doing a buy-bust, they call it a buy-and-bust operation. We call them buy-bust operations. In the Bronx, this happened on October, um, oh, sorry, August the 23rd of 2023, about a year and a half ago.

35:19

Speaker 1
Police said that Dupree or bad guy sold, or, or I'm sorry, uh, Dupree sold, uh, drugs to an undercover officer and then he tried to flee on the scooter. So Dupree or bad guy sold drugs to an undercover, flees on the scooter. We got surveillance video of this. So Dupree or bad guy is rolling away from cops trying to get away on a motorized scooter. He's going down the sidewalk, but he's headed towards a group of people and as he's approaching, our former sergeant who just got convicted of manslaughter, he's not in uniform, but he picks up a bystander's cooler and it was full of drinks and he throws it at the bad guy on the scooter and hits him, causes the accident, bad guy dies. He slams into a tree and he, and he crashes and dies. So Dupree, 30 years old, he was not wearing a helmet either. He sustained fatal head injuries and died almost instantly.

36:01

Speaker 1
They argued that the sergeant had enough time to warn other people, um, that the scooter was headed towards, but instead, whold- heard the, uh...... rolled the cooler at him. The sergeant testified at his trial that he made a split-second decision to keep other officers safe from the scooter speeding towards them by doing that, and he said he was going to crash into us. There's some other stuff. Um, he chose a bench trial instead of a jury trial, and the Sergeants' Benevolent, the Sergeants Benevolent Association says it sends a, a terrible message to hardworking cops. And this particular sergeant, he had 13 years on the force before this went down.

36:33

Speaker 1
Um, so, uh-

36:35

Speaker 5
I, I-

36:35

Speaker 1
... Chief Joel.

36:36

Speaker 5
Yeah. I wanna go first because I'm gonna yield to Anthony. I, I don't know where the defense and defense expert, uh, testimony is on this and why they chose a bench trial. I'm curious what Anthony would say, uh, if he had been this officer's, uh, defense attorney.

36:50

Speaker 3
Yeah. Actually, uh, I, I, I totally agree. Normally, you do... And, and I'm not a, a litigator. I'm a, I'm a, I'm a expert witness and so forth, but, you know, usually you have a better shot with the hearts and minds of a, a jury, especially because you only need to convince one (laughs) that you're right, and then you have a, uh, a hung jury. So, there's the first thing. But the other thing is, look, I, I, I'm not gonna lie to you. Like, based on what you've said, Chip, and I don't know the case, I did not see the video, it is problematic for him to do what he did. Because at the end of the day, would a reasonable person foresee that throwing this cooler at this person on a scooter would cause substantial bodily harm or death? The answer is yes. In other words, the prosecutor's probably arguing, hey, it's really no different legally than pulling out your gun and shooting this man. Um, he committed a felony. He's escaping. We have Tennessee versus Garner.

37:41

Speaker 3
We have, you know, Graham versus Connor. So, I think I, I, I see a problem, right? I mean, at the end of the day, I mean, if he's going towards this crowd, but it, it might be a little... It might be slightly embellished about what his danger was to this crowd. And I mean, so, right? I mean, he's throwing a cooler at the guy and he's gonna fall. I mean, and he has no helmet on. It's like tasing a guy that doused himself in gasoline.

38:03

Speaker 3
Would it, would it, in a sense-

38:05

Speaker 1
(laughs) Wow.

38:05

Speaker 3
... would it be foreseeable that it would cause some harm? So, I don't know. I, I just, I have more questions than answers right now. I'm not gonna say here on this show, absolutely this cop was set up. You know, he, he... I don't know. I think that if a regular... If I was the victim of a crime, or I saw, let's just say, I saw somebody commit a crime, a felony, like this, and I took... And I saw the guy escaping and I took a cooler and I threw it at the guy and he ended up dying, would I be on trial for something as a regular citizen?

38:32

Speaker 1
Ab- absolutely.

38:34

Speaker 3
Potentially?

38:34

Speaker 1
Yeah.

38:34

Speaker 3
So, I don't know. I, I... It's, it's, it's a tough situation. For three to nine years-

38:40

Speaker 5
I think part of the problem-

38:40

Speaker 3
... I'm not, I'm not gonna complain about that, but go ahead.

38:43

Speaker 5
Yeah. That, that's... I, I don't understand that.

38:45

Speaker 3
Yeah.

38:46

Speaker 5
Um, I, I think part of the problem may be, and this is why I would love to have seen a jury trial, I think, um, any time a cop uses something other than a gun or a taser, um, it, it kind of blows people's minds. Like, "Oh, can you use a cooler as a weapon? Can you use your vehicle as a weapon?"

39:03

Speaker 1
Your car can. Right.

39:03

Speaker 5
"I can't, I can't believe you pulled out a knife and stabbed the guy." Um...

39:08

Speaker 3
Right.

39:08

Speaker 5
Because that's, that's just outside of a normal person's perspective based on all the TV and movies they've seen. So, that, I think that worked against him. If it had been, uh, maybe, maybe his nightstick, uh, which is a, a legitimate police tool, I'm, I'm not sure it would have been quite as dramatic, but...

39:24

Speaker 3
Well, I have, I have, I, I, I have been involved in a case where a cop used his PR24 to put into the spokes of a motorcycle.

39:32

Speaker 1
Really?

39:32

Speaker 3
And... Yep. And they, um... It actually, you know, they, he tried actually. He didn't, he didn't succeed, but the department... So, he didn't, the guy didn't actually get injured, but the department tried to hit him with an allegation of deadly force. Because if it would have worked, the guy would have probably fell off and... Now, this guy had a helmet on, but... So, you know, this, I like to call it restraint of opportunity, right? A weapon of opportunity or restraint of opportunity. (laughs) You gotta be careful, though. You gotta be careful. At the end of the day, um...

40:01

Speaker 1
Right.

40:02

Speaker 3
It might not be, it might not be worth it.

40:04

Speaker 1
Well, guys, we have just enough time to get one more in, and I'm gonna jump to video number two. And I... But I want to describe in great detail for Anthony what, what's going down. Rumble.com, this is Butters, the channel. Woodbridge Police Sergeant, he ends up getting indicted in a fatal 2025 shooting of a guy with a baseball bat. So, we're in Woodbridge, New Jersey. There is video on this, pretty clear. Woodbridge Police Sergeant, I'll go through this quickly, he's been indicted in connection with a fatal police-involved shooting that happened last year. The state grand jury, they charged Sergeant Marco Bruno, first-degree aggravated manslaughter in the death of 35-year-old Amir Allen. Drop the fucking bat now. Drop the fucking bat now.

40:42

Speaker 5
We can cover.

40:43

Speaker 1
Drop the fucking bat.

40:45

Speaker 5
Nope.

40:45

Speaker 1
Drop the fucking bat. (gun firing) Drop the fucking bat. And it came nearly a year after the May 29th, 2025 incident. Prosecutors say that the officers were called to East Tappen Street in, in, in Woodbridge. There were multiple 911 calls about a guy assaulting people with a baseball bat. When the officers get there, they encounter a bad guy out and he's in the roadway, he's holding the bat, repeatedly ordered, uh, to drop it. He does not. He's walking away from the officers and you've got, I think I counted, what, a dozen, 12 to 15 officers following behind him and stuff. And when he doesn't obey, finally he stops near a, a, a convenience store. He's holding the bat and officers continue to give him commands. Sergeant Bruno arrives shortly after that. He orders this bad guy, uh, this guy to drop the bat, who's now facing the officers. He gives his command. The bad guy's got the, uh, the bat up like this, I believe, and, uh, after he gives him the command and the bad guy...

41:35

Speaker 1
I'm watching the video. It didn't look to me like he moved at all. Six shots, boom, boom, boom. Strikes the bad guy. He's taken to the hospital and he later dies. The case was investigated by the Attorney General's Office. They reviewed evidence, body cams, surveillance video, 911 calls. Grand jury decided to bring the charge, so that's, that's, uh, that's where we're at. If convicted, the sergeant could get 10 to 30 years. Commentary, we got, uh, a little less than a minute here. Uh, Anthony.

42:00

Speaker 3
So, based on just, based on... I haven't seen the video, and I, and I apologize, Chip, uh, last minute on this, but-

42:05

Speaker 1
No problem.

42:05

Speaker 3
... you're saying that the, the, the video is, is an issue for the cop?

42:09

Speaker 1
I'm saying, I, I... And it pains me to say it 'cause I was looking for a flinch or any movement on the part of the bad guy. And, and there is... The third video, there's a bunch, there's a ton of body cams. I, I, I couldn't, I just, I just couldn't see it. Now, it's very hard with body cam to see the proximity and the closeness of the bad guy, uh, but I, I, I, I, I, I didn't like, I didn't like what I saw. I'm not saying that... But I, I just, I would have liked, I would have liked to have seen something, you know?

42:35

Speaker 3
Sure.

42:35

Speaker 1
Um-

42:35

Speaker 3
An act of aggression.

42:38

Speaker 1
Or, yeah. Or, yeah, just a, a, maybe giving the cop a stink eye. You know, just something. (laughs) You know, I didn't see anything. Uh, Chief?

42:46

Speaker 5
Uh, yeah. I think I counted about 15 cops. Um, it's a shame they didn't develop, uh, some kind of strategy before the shots were fired.

42:54

Speaker 1

Yeah. Yeah, so, anyhow, um, so, I... We'll, we'll, we'll watch, we'll watch what happens, but it just... Sometimes you have it. There may be some extenuating circumstances that we're unaware of, uh, but if you're going solely on the video, I, uh, I, I, you know, they've got their work cut out for them on this one. Uh, guys, it's been such a great show. Anthony Bandero and, uh, Chief Schultz, thank you guys so much for being on the show. We've had some very... They were kind of complicated, but they were very in-depth, great, great topics, and you guys absolutely killed it, so thank you guys so much for doing that. Um, everybody on the stream and everybody watching the show, uh, we appreciate it as well. I want to mention thewoundedblue, the woundedblue.org as well. And Guys, uh, please support our sponsors. They go to great lengths to bring this show to you.

43:37

Speaker 1
Uh, we've got golus.com, our title sponsor, complietetechnologies.com, our satellite sponsor, gunlearn.com, mymedicare.life, safeguard recruiting, and tubellus.com. And guys, next week, we'll be back all week, but it'll... Producer Will's putting some special stuff together while I'm out of town, and we'll be back the following week. We'll see you back on Monday, 12 noon Eastern. (rock music plays)