Criminal Lawyer Reacts to Ohio Man Calmly Confesses to Police about Killing Woman Accidentally 

As far as not having Miranda Rights memorized… many departments have policy to read directly off the card at all times. It reduced potential misreading of rights and the physical act of taking the card out has been shown to have less incidences of officers forgetting to do it.

When I was a Cub Scout (a long, long time before body cameras), the local PD gave us a tour of their HQ. At one point, the officer giving the tour pulled out his Miranda rights card and read it to us. He said he had it memorized, but it was department policy that each officer read from their Miranda rights card. Some of the reasons said that that is policy is (1) there are no mistakes and (2) if questioned in court about an alleged criminal's Miranda rights, an officer just needs to say he/she read the alleged criminal's Miranda rights from the card and then pulls out the card.

Thank you and i really appreciate your viewpoint. I wondered about his self snitching and glad to hear your view on it. How sad for this man to have to live with this now and for her to have lost her life in such a senseless way.

I love how he ties in the advert with the current videos subject everytime!

these people convince themselves that "all i have to do is explain that it was an accident and they will believe me and everything will turn out ok"

Bruce is awesome!! I love everything about him. I have learned soo much watching his videos and love his brutal honesty. ❤❤❤

I’m my experience in calling in peoples names to dispatch, sometimes SSN is needed if the name is a very common name since there’s a high likelihood that they’ll need further identification to find the exact person.

He said he is scared of what the system is going to do to him - what kind of jails/prison might he face if he's lying vs if he's telling the truth? 3 years in jail is a long time for an accident. Do they ever let people go where someone dies but it is an accident or does someone always have to go to jail?

This lawyer seems like he doesn't miss a beat! There's definitely a difference between an attentive and shrewd lawyer vs a mundane one.

The thing that struck me is how he mentioned she had a "debilitating!" Disease. Maybe she asked him to do it because she couldn't and making it look like an accident would be more plausible for defense. Cause it would be hard to go up to a cop saying you killed someone because they wanted to be killed. But maybe I'm completely off on this lmao. Only time will tell, but also him saying he moves from place to place and him needing a place to stay since she kicked him out then he killed her is also plausible. So jail keeps a roof over his head.

The department probably has a policy that requires they read it.

Bruce, Is that a Mooney you have in the intro @ 0:05?

I saw his confession the other day 😮

"Dead [wo]man tell no tale."

Reading Miranda off the card is sort of like pilots having a preflight checklist; they're just making sure they cover all the bases properly.

pls do the florida teens that killed their friend and talked their way into life sentences by being completely honest with the detectives

Bruce Rivers is exactly the sort of lawyer you need.

Re memorize: I worked for the state and there was a circumstance that if a specific topic was brought up by a client we HAD to stop and read the blue card. We were told not to memorize it to read it off the card so we don't forget any part. I had it memorized but always picked up the card and read it off. The officer may have been trained to not recite from memory but to read off the card.

Even if you have Miranda memorized, it's a good idea just to read the card. That minimizes the risk of screw-up.

I wish I could have had Mr. Rivers as a professor in school. He explains some fairly complex legal ideas into easy to understand and utilize information in so many of his videos.

You have to break every rule of gun safety simultaneously in order to do what he did.

7:51 "nothing mundane about getting beat by your husband" 😂😂😂 Well said Bruce

With several hours passed before he took action, you would have thought he would have gone to an attorney to get advice and then arranged to turn himself in.

Hi Bruce. I am surprised you didn't make any further comment on Brian's statement about them "arguing when she was drunk and high". Wouldn't you agree that's a pretty big red flag that he really shot her out of rage and not by accident? Or at the very least, the prosecution could make that argument, which would be very bad for him?

He was just starting to complain about how hard it was for him to be with her due to her drug and alcohol consumption. That, paired with his emotionless demeanor, makes me think this crime may well be more complex.

I wonder if he was intoxicated at the time and so he slept it off before turning himself in.

Bruce seems like a cool guy that you could just chill with at a bbq and talk about great stories haha 😂

When I saw this clip last night, the first thing I thought was, I need to know what Bruce Rivers has to say about this matter! Listening to CLR restores my faith in humanity. Great values, great advice, realistic and funny… I’m so glad I found this channel. Bruce is so entertaining even the commercials slap!

He was homeless and it’s my belief he was trying to grift off his female friend and when she said no he flipped out. He turned himself in because he was tired of the homeless life and knew prison would be easier.

The value - just fyi- coming from being a cop myself- of having someone’s SSN is to have the opportunity to run a full 43 (ten code) or CCH. It basically allows dispatch to do a deeper dive in to the person’s background, criminal history, body marks tattoos piercings etc., gang affiliation, so on. Since the subject didn’t provide his ID AND is admitting to the commission of a crime (a form of homicide, specifically), it’s best to know a FULL report from dispatch. When I run someone by name/dob or DL, I get a certain “return” back and if it’s printed, it’s a minimal “report.” IF, however, someone gives you their social, it opens the floodgates and lets you in on anything…..if they have a mark on their left butt cheek, it’ll be in that return (report). “Return” or “returns” is “cop lingo” for “results” or “reports.” I’ve had this happen before to me when I was in between calls at the PD. The Officers did things right, but you’ve always gotta keep in mind how “the moment I put cuffs on someone, it’s (basically) game over.” Even if you’re JUST detaining them….it’s based off of a reasonableness factor. Would a reasonable person believe they were under arrest? If I “detain” someone in handcuffs and esp put them in the back of my patrol car, then yes, a reasonable person would think they’re being arrested (no matter how many times you might say “you’re only being detained” it doesn’t matter). I think since a lot of newer officers out there aren’t well-versed in what to do in these situations (and it will happen to you, it doesn’t matter the city, state, jurisdiction…..if you’re a cop, it’ll happen one day)…..so be prepared. Unless theyre an active threat, you don't put cuffs on. Period. Get as much info as possibłe BEFORE jumping to detain a compliant person. Always mirandize when you think the subject is talking tooooo much in a situation like this, cuffs on or not. Basicałły, Bruce Rivers…..iʼll be the cop answering your rhetoricał questions lol. I think as you went thru this, it was a great assessment. And very very accurate to “real life” situations cops run into. There’s no lie there-cops and criminal attorneys (prosecutors and defense attorneys both) see some unbelievably crazy ish. I hope that at least cleared up the question as to why the request for SSN. Hypothetically, if the guy was wanted in 4 states for murder, a normal name/dob or DL check would come back with those returns. But anything federal? Anything civil? Child support? ICE? Etc. That’s the importance of a SSN. I actually had an anomale of a traffic stop once. I had stopped a woman at night for a minor violation, like a tail light out or something like that. This woman was foreign, didn’t have an ID to provide, so I asked for a passport…she provided me a foreign passport. I then asked if she has a SSN, she did! Crazy I know. Had I not have asked for her SSN, I would’ve documented the stop and went about my business. However, this woman had a federal warrant for human trafficking (actually being the person trafficking others) and I was brand new, thus was 15+ yrs ago, and I was like…holy ish! Had I not have checked her by social, then none of that would’ve come up. Nothing federal-level comes up, or rather, it’s rare to see people on the FBIs watch list or fugitive list, etc etc to just come up by a check solely from name and dob. I taught all of my rookies to ask for socials but ONLY in the right circumstances and this one was fully appropriate in my professional opinion. I’m against the initial instance of handcuffing though. 100%, he shouldn’t have handcuffed a compliant person. He could’ve been turning himself in for stealing the bottle of water, for all we know. We have to get out of the cultural problem of handcuffing first, asking questions second. Maybe I’m just one of the few legit ones left it seems like but that’s my opinion on it all. (edited due to minor typo)

I've heard of cases being thrown out because the cop said one word wrong or used a synonym in the Miranda rights, and the lawyer was able to successfully argue that they were technically not read their rights according to the law.... so it's become policy in a lot of places to read it exactly word for word from a card.

Oscar pistorious recently lost his parole hearing, maybe we can revisit his case

s e l f n i t c h i n g

I don’t care how ‘calm’ and ‘cooperative’ he is, he had ALL night to plot his story and behaviour.

It would've helped him if he called an ambulance right away. And went to a lawyer before turning himself in.

I have to commend this guy for turning himself in to police, not many people would do that if possibly facing a murder charge. But on the other hand, why did he not call 911 and the police when it first happened? Thank you for clarifying this case.. ♥️ your channel!

I work with foster kids and we have a rights form that we have to go over with them on quite a regular basis. I know these rights, but I will keep reading from the paper so I know each and every time I explained in full. As the form states one of their rights is to fully understand their rights as a foster child

I think the card is a great idea personally. Especially since you just know that there will be a lawyer that makes an issue out of you says “and”instead of “or”. I work in the medical field…we do checklists all the time in high risk situations if it is possible. Pilots as well. These are some of the highest stakes of the entire job…the consequences of any error are a total invalidation of all the work you or anyone else does from that point on until someone realizes and corrects the error or duplicates the process but does it properly.

I learned to stop self snitchin' way back in 1996. It was just after I'd turned 18 and a friend of my brother asked me if I could pawn some things for him because he needed rent and he didn't have any ID. I was all, "You gotta get me a Whopper meal." He agreed and I took him to an apartment complex, where after a few minutes he came out with a bunch of electronics. We were then off to the pawn shop! I used my ID, got him the cash, and got my Whopper meal. I was happy as a clam! When I got back home, I found a mentally disabled woman that I knew, wailing in the street. I asked her what had happened, and she proceeded to tell me that she had been robbed of ALL OF THE THINGS that I had just pawned!!!!! I told her that I would get it back, but I didn't have the money. So I called the local police department. I told the operator what had happened and they transferred me to a Desk Sergeant. I told him what happened... and without missing a beat he told me that I was the one who committed the crime, and I had just confessed! I freaked out and exclaimed, "Good luck arresting me because I never gave you any of my information!" and hung up on him (I didn't think about Caller ID or their tracing it 'cuz I was young & dumb)! In the end, my mother went to the police station with me and explained the situation. They couldn't go after the guy who tricked me, but they did let me off with a warning and the woman ended up getting her stuff back. About 10 years later, money got tight, so I went to pawn some things and found out that I had been banned for pawning stolen property. So I didn't get away scott-free.

What if the man had insisted Bruce Rivers be called right away?

People do wild things when they’re scared or in shock. I’m glad he turned himself in and admitted what happened.

Must be one of those magical guns that just go off whenever they choose to.

14:40 exactly thank you. As a gun owner myself, these types of tragedies are so infuriating. The type of scenario this guy described is just the type of thing that my firearm safety class I took as a kid would constantly train you to both prevent, and intervene in if you were to witness it. I don’t know a single person who would actually be the type of person that I would show a gun to, that would need it demonstrated for them. If they aren’t familiar with firearms, then I won’t handle firearms around them. If you’re that much a novice, then you need proper training before handling an actual firearm. They are deadly weapons, not water balloons 🎈

Hey Bruce! I've been told to always read someone their Miranda Rights exactly verbatim from a card while on body cam so there can be no arguing that you misread them the rights or missed even a single word bringing into question the validity of the reading to the arrestee. We all definitely have it memorized, just another thing to cover our bases. Fruit for thought is all.

When they said "calmly confesses" they were not kidding. It's kinda creepy how chill he is about having killed someone. I think I'd be even more freaked out if I accidentally killed someone vs intentionally.

There is no such thing as “accidentally” shooting someone. There are ways to handle a fire arm and the number one rule is never point the barrel at anything you don’t wanna shoot. It’s pretty simple you could also idk take your fingers off the trigger, keep the safety on, take the bullets out. I mean I learned this shit playing with airsoft guns. So if you mistakenly shoot someone it’s a crime, and you should be in jail and never have owned a firearm.

The ridiculous thing about this crap is that this cop has absolutely no urgency to find out where this woman is and get medical help to her. The cop can’t trust this guy that he knows the difference between someone shot and dead and someone who’s barely holding on to life. He should have treated that woman as a victim needing immediate help until a professional got on scene and pronounced her dead

I love how trusting everyone is that he’s telling the truth! I guess if you ever find yourself wanting to murder someone, all you’ve got to do is shoot them directly in the face, then call the police and say that you accidentally shot the victim while showing them your gun. Everybody apparently just automatically assumes that’s what happened, and kudos to you for coming forward and handing yourself in!

This seems Suspicious, he is just too nonchalant for just killing someone, I’m not buying it..🤔✌🏼

Hi Bruce, as you get closer to 1 million subscribers I urge that you don’t change and get caught up in the hype of fame. The reason I subscribed is because you did high quality reviews and you are genuine! So please stay that way. Don’t change because you have been Real all this time!

I am not clear, is Bruce Rivers a Criminal Lawyer?

Knowing how prosecutors like to make plea deals and sometimes even really nasty criminals get sweet deals, this guy seems like the sort that they would be happy to settle outside of trial. But now that he has confessed, he really needs to lawyer up.

I’m on the fence with this one. The right thing to do was call an ambulance when it happened. It took him a long time to do the right thing.

Bruce can you talk about public defenders and how that system works, which lawyers work those jobs etc

This actually makes me think a person could decide to kill another person and that 2-3 years is worth it. So just shoot them in cold blood, then go to police station and claim accident. I mean with 2-3 years you could probably be out in half that time. For all we know that’s what this guy did. He was talking about this lady like he had some kind of issue with her. There’s lots of older men who randomly murder women all the time while seeming to be perfectly normal old dudes.

If, he did not call an Ambulance, it was no accident... If, he had called for medical help, then the police would have been involved. I wonder what she had on him? This guy is a slick one!

Never knew how bonds or bail worked. I've never had to deal with it. Thanks for explaining that

There is something off about Mr. Mason's behaviour. No fear or apprehension. He could as well have been reporting a missing purse. He was too relaxed for having shot someone fatally, even by accident.

He may have said it 1000 times but he still reads off the card to not make mistakes that lawyers like you could use to get the defendant off of the charges. Same with the SFSTs.

I look forward to when you react to Evil Stepmother and current Queen of Self-Snitchin', Letecia Stauch, who is currently on trial for the heinous murder of her 11-year-old step-son Gannon.

If I ever did any harm accidentally to anyone I wouldn't wait tomorrow I'll call emergency number immediately I wouldn't wait till tomorrow

Police Academy Instructor: So what? Do you think the criminal is just going to walk up to you & turn themselves in, peacefully!? Give you a full confession!? It doesn't work like that! Let me be the 1st to inform you, that's not going to happen! You have to do real, hard investigative WORK! ...👀💯

I think the cop was either fairly new as a cop or he was totally thrown by the fact that random old guy rolls up & confesses to murder. Bless him 😂

When Bruce asked why he doesn’t have the Miranda Rights memorized I figured reading off a card or out your notebook was common place. Here in Canada when I did some training I was taught early no matter how much you remember always read from the card, cause you don’t want to start this arrest jacked up lol. Take the few seconds to make sure it’s done right for everyone.

I wonder if he's in the early stages of Alzheimer's or dementia. The symptoms of both get worse at night and under emotional stress. He may really have had a difficult time mentally processing what to do.

I watched this too and was able find her obituary and news articles about it. I’m sure that officer is like is this really how my day is going to go.

I'm glad you did this one. Thought of you when I saw it. Stop self switching! Lmao

They took the cuffs off wow complexion for protection 🤔

With my case know expunged I’m more willing to talk about my experience with the law. In 2019 I was charged with a class 3 felony of malicious wounding… of who? My father, unfortunately. It was mid-day and I had just woken up to a very high tension household with my parents angry and my little brother in-trouble (I was 18 at the time). I went downstairs to get some food when a massive argument unfolded… I’ve never seen anyone in the house so angry in my life. I had grabbed a plate from the counter at the time and when I got heated I slammed the plate back onto the counter amongst other plates causing a load crashing sound. My father in the other room quickly came around a blind corner as I was leaving the room and I, blind natural instincts, interpreted in the nanosecond I had he was charging at me, like full on running (he claims he was never running but we still disagree). I quickly stumbled back into the room and when we DID come into physical contact I grabbed a pair of scissors on the counter and I stabbed him in the back and in a moment we ended on the ground. Neither of us remember how we ended up grabbled on the ground but we did… he went to the emergency room and I took a shower and changed clothes when suddenly I got a call from the police (I’ma be honest, I didn’t realise police called people, maybe an abnormal event who knows). I turned myself into the police at the local police station and waited in the empty lobby for 15~30 minutes before an officer pulled up in his cruiser and came into the building. We went into the interogation room where I told him the ENTIRE story from my perspective. From there he hand cuffed me from the front (act of kindness) with the cuffs so loose I could easily slip out without any effort and we drove to the count-house to get me booked. When in the count-house I was put in front of the magistrate where I was upfront and honest and with good words said from the cop I was out (after fingerprinting and everything else) with $3000 unsecured bond. The magistrate was very nervous though cause I had no other family in the state and I has to return to the same house the incident happened in. In the end, the prosecutor dropped the charges with no community service or any sort of programs. I always knew I shouldn’t talk to the police but frankly, in this one exception I am glad I did as it’s probably the only reason I got out on bail and wasn’t held in jail overnight. Even now the officer who arrested me shops at my place of work and we are cordial and frankly, other than the ludicrous legal expenses, it was a positive outcome where nothing ended up happening. Now me and my father have a better relationship than we ever had in our lives and I spend more time with him than I used to. Anyways, that’s my case.

moment when you self snitch, calmly

Nice breakdown. I would love for you to do one of the Carrie Culberson Case in Blanchester, Ohio. I knew both Carrie and Vincent. It has all the makings of a crime novel.

@10:57, TBH here Bruce, the card is a smart move. While most cops probably should have Miranda committed to memory, for every cop that has been wearing a badge for 20 years, there are 10 cops that have been on the job for less than 20 months. Not only that, some states have adopted very slightly nuanced wordings of the Miranda warning to cover particular elements of statutes/jurisprudence in their state. It really is a better overall cover-your-ass policy for police agencies to require their officers to read the Miranda warning. Besides, not all cops are created equal. There are plenty of moron cops all over the country that might have 40 years on the force and would still fuck it up. Especially if they've been riding a desk for the last two decades.

Social security number is asked for because its the simplest way for a cop to run someone's information through DMV records to get full name, address, date of birth, etc. Even if they ask for that info and write it down, having it automatically populate on their computer makes the report writing process faster- so it becomes a habit. Not to mention its an additional unique identifier for people to make sure they have the right person and you can get it from someone's memory instead of trying to keep track of their ID throughout the arrest process- an ID card will fall off of just about any surface in a police car and fall right into the depths of uncleaned car seat hell.

Thats the guilt that was eating him alive , i feel bad for the man if hes telling the truth, i love and respect our gun rights . but how do you squeeze the trigger knowing theres a bullet in the chamber , unless he forgot or hes lying . Plus just because you have Bullets inside a clip/magazine and its in the gun it wont shoot unless you load it , if you have a revolver than thats a different mechanism , its possible he forgot maybe he had it loaded months or years ago and forgot i dont know people forget and make mistakes but thats 1 mistake that can kill you or somebody else if not attended properly, you need to have major discipline and awareness when you own guns , i own plenty of pistols & an AK47 & AR15 all ( legal) im licensed and i dont keep nothing in the chamber , i only load the bullet into the barrel if im going to use my gun , if im in a situation where i have to pull it out & cock it , it means im using it , i dont keep loaded guns in my house because i forget what i ate last night , sometimes i would forget that I loaded my gun and put it in my drawer since than I never left it loaded . To be safe , plus i dont have children , im single, ive taught my buddys how to use handle load and unload , with dummy rounds they dont shoot . Plus a gun range is the perfect place to practice and learn I have friends who've had accidents nobody got hurt in those accidents and they never went to jail or got caught but it taught them to be responsible. Just dont keep bullets that's ready to shoot if you pull the trigger in your gun if your not experienced and never let somebody touch your gun with ammo in it , learn every inch and memorize every inch of your gun to avoid problems death or jail time . If you have children you need an advanced safe , away from reach . Don't even let your children know or see that you have it as an extra safety measure , I am 26 years old and I even know better than some old adults and I admit accidents happen but there's a lot of stupid people in the world as well . You can't have any I forgot or it was an accident when it comes to owning a gun .

I would read off a card in a potential murder case.

After being pulled over by the cops & after the cop asks the inevitable "do you know why i pulled you over?" Anyone out there ever respond, "uh, the dead body in the trunk?" I did!. .. once.

I’m to early first time for everything 😂❤❤ I love the channel

I’m a recovering attorney- JD 1986; I’m very anxious about Miranda not being codified. Is that the next case to be overturned by the Supremes?

Guns don't just "go off".

I agree that he should be given some leeway for turning himself in, even though he should have done it immediately if completely innocent. Not a cold blooded killer, but he did kill someone and run from the scene of the crime. I think anyone that choose to handle and gun, not knowing how to handle a gun, that ends in a death, means you are liable and should spend at least a few years in jail. manslaughter at the worst. The justice system is fucked in America. He did the equivalent of driving a car and not knowing how to drive safely and accidently killed someone. He is at fault but America is gun happy so they don't treat guns like a weapon.

I’m inspired by these videos to study law even at 31 I’m inspired by the lawyer who helped defend me successfully in a domestic situation where I was the actual one hit I ended up being given an apology from the district prosecutor of Seattle

If I were the deputy, I'd ABSOLUTELY read the Miranda warning off a card for each and every single arrest I ever made. Even if I were certain I had it memorized, that card is coming out, and I'm reading word for word what it says. Why? That way, there's no chance of me ever making a mistake. Nobody can come back later and argue something like "well you actually said such and such, which changed the meaning of what you told me because this particular word you used is different from this other word you should've used, even though they're commonly used as interchangeable in daily life." It's a protective thing, and wouldn't be because I don't have it memorized, but rather to ensure that I get every single work perfectly correct. It's similar to pilots that have thousands of hours flying using check lists for fairly simple tasks when flying an airplane. It's not because they don't know what to do, but rather to make absolutely certain that nothing is omitted or done incorrectly, despite already having every step memorized.

The reason he reads Miranda off the card at @11:03 is probably because it’s department policy. If you force the officers on your department to only read rights while reading off the card, then it’s way less likely for a cop to forget/improperly mirandize which could be crucial when a prosecutor has to build a case against the suspect. I’d be extremely surprised if this cop (or any cop) doesn’t have the Miranda perfectly memorized straight out of police academy.

Andy Reid out here bugging😂

Tangential, but Dreading just uploaded an 8+ hour video compilation on why you should never take the stand in your own defense. It's a self-snitchin' marathon!

I worked at a law firm in the cities for 15 years. Wish I had found your channel a few years ago. I would have been looking for job openings at your firm. But we picked up and left Minnesota in January to travel the country for a few years. Unfortunately, we won't be settling back down in Minnesota once we're done traveling. Most likely we'll end up in New Mexico or Hawaii.

There are no accidental discharges; it was a negligent discharge. Actually, there is one kind of accidental discharge - if you're dumping mags in the desert sun, your weapon can bake off a round, but if you've got one in the chamber, you're liable for where your barrel is pointed when the round bakes off. But that's a really niche situation.

It's one thing to be scared, but running away and not calling 911 right away to try to get her help makes him look guilty. But, it will make him look good in court by turning himself into the police. It just blows my mind how many people act like they have no idea what a lawyer is or what their rights are.

You've updated your audio so I can hear you without reading CC's....thank gawd!

What I found surprising about the police response was how relaxed they were about getting medical aid to the address. Chances are she was deceased, but they couldn't be sure...

From what I understand, interrogation rooms are all gray and boring so there's nothing for the suspect to focus on or get distracted by.

I think the cop was hoping he would quit talking...BTWs each state phrases Miranda slightly different, asks if they understand each one, and then go to the next sentence/phrase. Some states have to offer Miranda in more than one language as you know...so, last cop that lived in our neighborhood said they're required to read off the card, some have to initial after each sentence.

Wrong, the cop uses the SS to relay back to dispatch and have them run his information, you can use just the ID but you get more accurate results for warrants and such with SS.

U gotta squeeze the damn trigger if I'm wrong??? I mean they don't have to be loaded. What's going on here

Love your channel, Attorney Rivers! I’m a 3L graduating from law school next month, and yours is by far my favorite legal channel. Also, I find the quirks of Miranda so interesting. For example, I learned last year about how being in prison is *not* considered “in custody” for purposes of Miranda. Just found that so counterintuitive.

Probably didn't go to cops until he sobered up

i’ve seen another video of someone going to confess but it was the exact opposite. we was sobbing, breaking down into pieces of a man. it wasn’t coherent all you could understand was that he killed someone. i think it was a hit and run. it was heartbreaking in a way that makes this one utterly creepy. like this guy doesn’t care.

He left thinking there was no witnesses and over night he couldn't live with himself

I live in Montgomery county and when I herd that phone number start with 937 chills went down my spine

b r u c e