Join us for an inside look at the messy, blurry—and often fascinating—reality behind what you thought you knew about courtroom procedure.

Welcome to Lawyer Talk! In this episode, Steve Palmer and law student Troy Henricksen dive deep into the real-world drama of suppression hearings—a process that determines whether evidence should be kept out of a criminal trial. While law school teaches the basics about motions and constitutional amendments, it rarely shows students how these issues play out in the actual courtroom.

Drawing from their recent experience with a case involving Miranda rights, consent, and nuanced police interviews, Steve Palmer and Troy Henricksen break down the steps of filing a suppression motion, navigating unpredictable courtroom dynamics, and facing off with government attorneys. They discuss what happens when police testimony evolves under cross-examination, the importance of truth-telling, and why confronting witnesses is crucial.

Got a question you want answered on the podcast? Call 614-859-2119 and leave us a voicemail. Steve will answer your question on the next podcast!

Submit your questions to www.lawyertalkpodcast.com.

Recorded at Channel 511.

Stephen E. Palmer, Esq. has been practicing criminal defense almost exclusively since 1995. He has represented people in federal, state, and local courts in Ohio and elsewhere.

Though he focuses on all areas of criminal defense, he particularly enjoys complex cases in state and federal courts.

He has unique experience handling and assembling top defense teams of attorneys and experts in cases involving allegations of child abuse (false sexual allegations, false physical abuse allegations), complex scientific cases involving allegations of DUI and vehicular homicide cases with blood alcohol tests, and any other criminal cases that demand jury trial experience.

Steve has unique experience handling numerous high-publicity cases that have garnered national attention.

For more information about Steve and his law firm, visit Palmer Legal Defense.

Copyright 2026 Stephen E. Palmer - Attorney At Law

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All right, folks, lawyer talk, off the record, real life scenario coming today. We, for those who don't know, we actually have a real legal practice, Palmer Legal Defense, right here in Columbus, Ohio.

Check us out@palmerlegaldefense.com but today we're. You know, I'm going to sort of take this they don't teach you that in law school series. And we're going to talk about what we got into this week.

We got tangled up a little bit in a case involving a suppression motion. We've talked about this.

You know, in law school, they teach you sort of the esoteric crap, like if the police are going to interview you and you're in custody, then they have to read your Miranda rights. Or if you're going to consent to something, or a search has to be knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily made.

But then there's not really a good instruction as to how that all unfolds in the real world.

Yeah. So how happened here? And actually, I'll start at law school. Law school.

The most we ever do on suppression is they kind of teach you what the suppression issue is. And then if you're taking criminal drafting, usually the final exam is drafting a suppression motion.

So suppression motion being the suppression motion. Just trying to exclude evidence.

We're saying, judge, these cops violated my client's constitutional rights. Either the fourth Amendment, fifth Amendment, Sixth Amendment. Pick an amendment. Pick your favorite. And because of that, they can't.

They being the government, the prosecutor's not allowed to introduce that evidence into a courtroom.

And that's the extent of law school. So you don't get like a ton of exposure to it here in this case, we got to see the evidence.

We figured that there was some issues with the Fourth Amendment on our case, the Fifth Amendment.

We were talking fifth and sixth. Oh, and fourth. Yeah. Because we had a consent.

Yeah, yeah. So all these issues, and so then we present them in a motion to the court, and then state responds, and then we then go do this hearing.

Well, you get to do the hearing. I had the opportunity to actually sit in one, which that's nothing you don't get in law school.

Yeah, you don't get to do that in law school. So I have found over the years, and you've seen this. We introduced, say, Troy's our resident law student.

He's a law clerk in most judges, most courts. Like, I. I love teaching.

I mean, the only thing I get I'm getting is more out of teaching you how to do, sort of giving you the foundation that I know so you can take it to your own level later. And I think most judges like that too.

Well, whenever you ask it, I see it like they get like a little like spark and they're like, oh, yeah, absolutely.

The clergy, because we're bored, do this crap every day. You know, it's like, come on. Another surprise. I was like, judge, this is Troy. He's a law student. Oh yeah. Where you go? What year?

What are you studying? Who's your professor? It's fun, something different. And I always say, judge, do you mind if Troy comes back to like, that was an in chambers meeting.

Yeah.

And we got to sit there and you got to listen to the banter. You get to see how the sausage is made.

Yeah.

Little. Probably just like the judge sort of saying, what's the capital of Brazil?

I'll admit I got it wrong. He asked me Turkey and I said Istanbul, which.

But it's fun, right? Because we're all people. And it doesn't mean that we as lawyers aren't advocating strongly for our client. It doesn't mean that the prosecutor.

Nothing nefarious is going on. But in the back, we sort of break these issues down. And the judge was a very good judge. Yeah.

Very attentive to the issues, cared about the legal issues, but also put us all at ease enough to say, look, you can advocate for your cases here, but I'm going to be the judge. And he lets you not only back into the room, but he also lets you sit at the council table. We'll say in front of the bar.

Yes.

Yeah. So whenever.

Look, the old history is if you picture a courthouse, anybody's been in a courtroom, in an old fashioned courthouse, there's always a rail. And sometimes like a little bar door, like a little knee high or hip high bar door that swings.

If you're a member of the bar, you get to cross over that bar. And that, I think that's the history of that. So you got to cross over the bar and sit at council table. And the judge was totally cool with it.

Now here's the procedure that was going on.

We filed a motion, it was a written argument that says, you, government violated my client's constitutional rights and therefore you can't use the evidence that you found as a result. And the government then, because we've alleged a constitutional violation with sufficient facts, just enough to say, here's why. And we did.

Now the government, the prosecutor has the burden of proof. They have to come forward and. And disprove the constitutional violation. So.

Yep. And whenever we did this we kind of raised two specific issues. It was statements and it was DNA, and statement.

One would be a Miranda issue, which Miranda is just that there was somebody in custody and they were given and there was an interrogation and there was no Miranda warning given. And so these statements we want to suppress. And that was our first big issue.

So let's break that down.

So the police bring a suspect into the cop house, sit them down in an interrogation room and say, we just want to talk to you about something that happened on X Date. Just want to get your side of the story. Turns out that there is an incident. Why don't you tell us what you're doing on that day?

And somebody starts talking.

Yeah.

Now, the question is, the problem is, I guess from our side is that the police didn't go grab this suspect and bring him, drag him into the cop house in handcuffs. They called him on the phone and said, come on down. So the two key components to Miranda.

We'Ve talked about this before, are custody and interrogation.

All right? Custody, meaning a reasonable person in the suspect's shoes would not feel like he or she is free to leave.

That's based on the totality of the circumstances. An interrogation is really any question that's designed to elicit any sort of response that could be incriminating.

Yeah.

So the question in this type of scenario is if you go down voluntarily, so the police call you in and say, come on down to the cop house. We want to talk to you. How could that possibly be custody? And that's sort of where that issue is going to turn.

And in the course of that, they asked a suspect first. Let's just say we'd like to get consent. While you're here, can you just consent to us searching your car or giving us DNA or searching your house?

You know, here's a form. Go ahead and fill this form out. And, you know, we just want to rule you out. Yeah, we just want. Yeah, no big deal. We just want to rule you out.

It's the quickest way to rule you out. Let us search your car, make sure you don't have any drugs.

We're trying to help you.

We're here for you. Yes. They aren't, by the way, if they call you down and you get accused of something. So you got to see this hearing play out.

Now, in law school, it's more like if the government can show this or this, then it's this. If they can't show this or this, then it's that. You know, it's like very sort of it toggles very clearly.

But you got to see sort of the plan of the joints. Yeah. The prosecutor called a witness.

Yep.

So they called the detective that does interview and present exhibits, which was a video of the interview and then consent form that was filed, like, in it, too. And you get to hear the cop testify. And it's very. Because this is my first impression here with you. These cops realize that they did something wrong.

It's not even that they're afraid that they did something wrong. Okay.

Yes, they're afraid.

And I mean that they have this, like, here's the. Anyway, go ahead. I'll give you my thoughts on it.

I just sit there and think. They're like, okay, screwed up. How can I salvage this? All right, I'll fix it on the stand. That is where I'll. I'll make the. I'll make the corrections.

I'll do it under oath.

Why not?

And then it just always backfires on them. I just. I wish they would just fall on their sword almost. And I feel like it almost looked better and sound better.

Well, here's the problem. And this is like, this is the. This is the advice I give anybody that is going to testify in court.

You've got two, three things you're going to have to contend with when you testify in court. One is going to be whoever's calling you to testify is going to ask you questions on direct examination.

So the prosecutor in a police case would say, all right, Officer, what happened next? Well, that's the easy part, because that's your friend. And, you know, you just. You can't make a mistake. But then you get cross examination.

And I. I have testified in federal court and state court on behalf of different defense and prosecutors over the years. And it is, you know, it's. I had to sort of take a deep breath and say, look, I'm just here to do one thing. Tell the truth, say what happened.

And all too often on cross examination, whether it's a police officer, whether it's you, or whether it's anybody here in the studio, they get on the witness stand and they try to anticipate what the lawyer is trying to do to them, and I use that terminology on purpose, they presume an attack and then do what they can to parry it, to dodge and weave and do whatever. And this results in what I like to call testifying.

It's a good term. And they don't teach that at all in law school.

No, they don't teach Tesla. So then they start to, like, shade it a Little bit.

And, you know, why didn't you tell the suspect that he was getting accused of a crime when you invited him to come down? Well, we just don't like to. We want to make sure that we're actually talking to the right person on the other line before we tell them that.

Well, look, you say that to a. I'm in a courtroom, a guy like me, and I'm not saying I'm alone. There's lots of us criminal defense lawyers who have been battle scarred over the years. It's like, you're right. Notes. You're like, what?

I was like, what did she. What did he just say? She didn't tell him he's charged with a crime because she wanted to make sure she had the right guy on the phone.

Bold strategy.

Bold strategy.

So look, I immediately start thinking, well, then how does that explain why the police didn't tell this guy that he was being accused of a crime when he first walked in the police house door?

Or when he first walked through the inner door to get to the interrogation room that they had to unlock, by the way, or when he first sat down at the interview table, or when they first started to question him about an incident, why didn't they tell him it was a crime? So it's like, look, this cop thought it was a really good. And maybe that was partly the reason, but it wasn't the only reason.

There's a minimal reason, very small.

You start to smell blood in the water a little bit. And that is the stuff that actually plays out.

And I think it would be for everybody, police officers, defendants, eyewitnesses, any experts, anybody testifying. Just tell the damn truth.

Simple.

What did you tell him before that he was getting accused of a crime? Because the obvious answer, the elephant in the room was because he may not have come down.

He may have actually gotten a lawyer and not come and talk to us. Fair enough. That's good police work on one. I mean, you can look at that like, okay, well, at least that's the truth.

But when you start to fudge it, when you start to, you don't want to give that up, it's worse. And, you know, it informed the rest of the case. So in our hearing, the first issue was the guy in custody.

In other words, did he feel like he was free to leave?

And we pointed out all these facts like, look, he did come down there, but had to go through the doors and was sitting there, and he had two cops, one with uniform, both with guns, and the door was closed, and he had to be escorted in. Had to be escorted out. Yeah, you can say that he was free to leave, but you never told him he was free to leave.

He never said, this is completely on your own. You have every right not to talk to us and the police. I would always say this.

I consult with police officers or I have in the past, or if we're sitting in a room, I'd be just like, look, man, why not just read the guy's Miranda warnings?

It seems like such an easy option. And even. Maybe even like a half. Yeah, I'm gonna say like a half ass Miranda. Almost like, like, hey, like, just be friendly.

We're like, hey, you know, you know, if you're not. If you don't feel like this guy is in custody because this. I tell you what, doesn't matter. What doesn't matter is what the police think.

What does matter is what the. The suspect thinks. If.

If you don't feel like that this suspect is in custody and you're thinking to yourself as a police officer, well, he's free to leave whenever he wants. Well, just tell him that. Yeah, look, dude, I want you to know you're free to leave. You don't have to answer any questions.

This is completely voluntary. Do you know what voluntary means? This is completely your decision. You understand?

Yep.

You still want to talk to us? Yep. All right, then we're good to go.

Now I would advocate, argue for, strongly encourage, read them as damn Miranda warnings because what do you got to lose? Like, if we're here to really protect suspects rights, just do it. Just do it. And because they didn't, now we have an issue. And now the qu.

Now in the middle of all that menagerie mess, they ask for consent to conduct additional searches. And the guy's like, well, should I talk to somebody? Should I not? I mean, how's that inform the consent? And that's how.

And you saw in real time how blurry this whole thing gets. Yeah, it's hardly ever black and white. It got really blurry.

And I think a lot of times the government doesn't see it that way because they don't have to. We do because we have to. And you know, we've raised an issue. It's a. You got to see how it really happens in the real world. Yeah.

Like, the things I really took away from.

That was also the thing I'll teach you in law school, is you get to see the state strategy actually change at the hearing because we read their counter motion and you get to like, hear like Read it. You're like, okay, it's kind of just saying nuh, which is that's how they all. They all are. But then you get to see it shape and change.

And now they have like, this cop has definition of what an interview is, of what, how this isn't custody and how there's a. They rely heavily on, like a consent form. And you can see kind of evolve.

It's kind of nice that we get to do closings on paper and they don't teach you. They don't teach you that in law school. And it's kind of weird because I do see how judges ask you guys want to do it.

And I think I like closing on paper more because then you can take those things that weren't really touched on in the paper motions and you can really start doing a little more research and hammer down on them in a closing motion.

All right, well, there's two ways this goes. Sometimes judge just say, all right, closing arguments. And we just. Yeah. And I know by then we know the law and we know the facts.

We can probably deliver a pretty good argument off the cuff.

And there are some times where I really like that maybe sometimes when I'm making more of an emotional argument, I'd want to just argue it right there. Sometimes, like our case a little more complicated. There's a lot of nuance to it.

We want to excise some of the statements from the interview and do different things. It's going to be more of a logical. It lends itself to a written argument. And the other thing we're doing is we're preserving our record for appeal.

Yep.

So now we get to write our position out so we can carefully make sure that we have dotted all the I's, crossed all the T's, in case this case goes the wrong way. We can go up to the court of appeals and we got something to talk about. And it's right there. Very helpful. So I. Look, I don't know how.

What's your prediction?

I love gambling.

And beforehand, you know, I wasn't going to say it was going our way, but then after hearing the detective and everything, I feel like we actually probably can win this. Just the detective really made it worse.

Yeah. Well, look, let me tell you what you're really getting at. The US Supreme Court said, I'm not gonna look it up.

But the case is this cross examination is the greatest legal engine ever discovered or ever invented for the discovery of the truth. And it's so true because for the same reason we're talking about writing it. We have total control over the narrative.

When somebody starts to talk about it, you can see the holes and what happened.

And then if somebody like me, I'm not the only one, of course, but somebody who has experienced cross examining people, you can expose that stuff in a way that you could never expose just in a paper, back and forth, ever. And the right of confrontation under the sixth Amendment is so critical to our process because of that, and there is no substitute for it.

So there you have it, right from a criminal defense lawyer's mouth. They don't teach you that in law school. Not here, not there, not anywhere.

But we talk about it right here on Lawyer Talk Podcast, off the record, on the air till now.