A Certain Brilliant American Lawyer

I once wrote a story titled "How I Easily Succumbed to the Ultimate Salesman" (about how I ended up buying a commercial vehicle called a pickup truck while living in the American South) (https://note.com/yamada_nick/n/n0a14f794b8d4), and this is the follow-up to that story.

In fact, not long after I started driving that truck, I was arrested for drunk driving and held overnight in a detention cell at the police station.

More than 20 years ago in the American South, where there was almost no public transportation, it was common to drink beer or similar beverages when eating out and then drive home, and unless you were caught for something else like running a red light, you would never be subjected to an alcohol test.

The reason I was arrested and detained was that on my way home after a dinner, I accidentally turned into a one-way country road from the wrong direction, and when a police car happened to come from the opposite direction, I did not follow its order to stop and drove away.

The time I spent "running away" was only a few minutes, but after backup police cars arrived, I was forced to spread my legs and lie face down on the hood of the car while multiple officers pointed their handguns at me, and I was handcuffed behind my back.

After being thrown into the back seat of a police car and arriving at the station, I had my watch and wallet taken away, as well as my belt and shoelaces, and after alcohol and drug tests, I was placed in a detention cell in the basement.

The detention cell was a large room surrounded by iron bars that held about 10 people, including some who looked like drug addicts, and there was one toilet in the corner that was completely exposed.

The next morning (though when you are in a place with 24-hour lighting and no windows or clocks for a long time, you lose your sense of time), the investigator told me, "In this case, release on bail is possible upon payment of a bail bond," so I was allowed to contact my workplace, arranged for the bail bond, and was released in the evening.

(By the way, if I were to cause such a scandal today, I would be sent back home immediately and face disciplinary action, including dismissal. But back then, things were more relaxed, and the Japanese branch manager at my workplace just laughed it off, saying, "You've had a valuable experience.")

A few days later, I received documents from the court stating my court date and other details, but what surprised me was that I immediately received calls from several lawyers. When I asked them about it, they told me that this case had already been made public.

I met with several lawyers, and they were all focused solely on pleading for leniency, but one lawyer told me the following:

"There is little room for leniency, and not only will your driver's license be revoked, but (1) because you not only drove drunk but also fled, which is malicious, you are highly likely to face penalties such as long-term road cleaning service in addition to a heavy fine. (2) Even if you can get your license back, your car insurance premiums will be astronomical. (3) If you are staying on a work visa, it will be extremely difficult to renew it due to your criminal record. (4) However, if you leave your defense to me, there is about a 50% chance that I have a secret plan to solve all these concerns at once."

I hired him to defend me.

The fee was a small retainer and a high success fee, and the latter was a simple proposal: half of the combined amount of the fine and the increase in car insurance premiums if I were found guilty.

I will get to the conclusion now.

Thanks to this lawyer, I was acquitted and succeeded in leaving no criminal record whatsoever. I was able to reconfirm this about 10 years after this incident when I requested a "police certificate" from the police station for my U.S. permanent residency application.

His strategy was based on the premise that the arresting officer himself would have to appear in court as the plaintiff, so as long as that officer kept showing up, he would repeatedly request the judge to reschedule the trial for some reason on behalf of the defendant, wait for the plaintiff officer to be absent, and have the trial itself dismissed.

Specifically, on the day of the trial, once the lawyer confirmed that the officer was there, he succeeded in rescheduling the first time by saying, "Some important documents are still missing," and the second time by saying, "The defendant is not feeling well today."

And on the third trial date, which had been postponed twice, the opposing officer, perhaps tired of being called in repeatedly for such a minor case, did not show up, and because the plaintiff was absent, the "case" itself fell through and ended anticlimactically.

The lawyer said "about a 50% chance" because it depended on the temperament of the plaintiff officer. He said that if the other party was determined and kept appearing in court no matter how many times it was postponed, this "strategy" probably wouldn't have been accepted if he had tried it three times.

I have heard that excellent professionals do not sell their time, but rather make proposals committed to results according to the situation their clients are in, and this case was a brilliant example of that.

Postscript:

I had my birthday shortly after this, and this is a photo of a special birthday cake that my American secretary at the time prepared at the office.

She was a person full of humor who, when I called from the detention center, replied, "Oh, I wondered why you weren't at work, so that's where you were. Are you calling because you want to subscribe to a magazine you want to read there? What's the address and room number?"