<![CDATA[Nathaniel G. Williams, Attorney at Law

<![CDATA[Nathaniel G. Williams, Attorney at Law - Legalese]]>Mon, 23 Mar 2026 17:56:40 -0700Weebly<![CDATA[IT'S ALL IN THE ATTITUDE]]>Fri, 14 Jul 2017 11:35:54 GMThttp://www.ngwilliamslaw.com/legalese/its-all-in-the-attitude The criminal justice system can be described in many ways, and one of those is the Business of Inconvenience. Everything about the criminal justice system seems (and some would say is specifically designed) to inconvenience the defendant. Getting pulled over, receiving a ticket, getting arrested, making bond, showing up to court, hiring an attorney, obtaining and going over evidence, going back to jail, going on probation, getting the case removed from your record, etc. are all difficult and stressful events. So how do you get through all of this stress and inconvenience without losing your mind and possibly getting more charges?

The Attitude Test

This is the big one. From the moment you encounter a police officer for the first time until the moment your case is dismissed or you complete your sentence, you are going to be subject to the attitude test. This is complicated by the fact that a criminal defendant can be afraid, anxious, angry, outraged, frustrated, confused, conflicted, intoxicated and/or innocent during one or more stages of their case. These emotions are often exacerbated by the fact that so many people now have some form of control or influence over the defendant’s life that didn’t exist before. A short list includes police officers, jail staff, other defendants, pretrial officers, court clerks, defense attorneys, prosecutors, court administrators, judges, bailiffs, bondsmen, and probation officers. With each one of these people, you are taking the attitude test every time you interact with them.
So, how do you not fail the attitude test? Well, first and last, be polite. Be polite to everyone involved with your case every single time. You have to understand that criminal courthouses are like small towns. Everyone knows each other and they gossip like crazy. Having a bad encounter with one person can affect how all of the other people deal with you. Furthermore, each of those people can influence how you are viewed in the system overall. It can affect how much time occurs between court dates, whether or not you have to show up, their willingness to overlook any mistakes you make while on bond, the kind of deal you get offered. The list goes on and on. This doesn’t just apply to defendants. I’ve shaken my head at my own colleagues who seem to be completely oblivious to the fact that they are being rude to the people who ultimately have the most power over what happens to their clients’ cases.
It is okay to be frustrated, even outraged, at your circumstances. It may even be possible for you to get others in the criminal justice system to share in your frustration and outrage and try to make things better for you. Or they may even sympathize with your situation and want to make things better for you. Or you just may be stuck with your situation because it’s just a bad case for you and there’s not much to be done about it. Unfortunately, that is the most inconvenient part of this bit of advice. It may not help at all. You may smile and swallow your pride at every turn and still end up with the same outcome. However, it’s a safe bet to say that if you fail the attitude test, it will turn up worse and probably in ways that you will never know.

Take a Breath

I am a third generation attorney and practically grew up in a courtroom. I love being in courthouses and courtrooms. I like watching trials and hearing, talking about cases and obscure points of law and/or evidence. It is rare that I ever feel any anxiety at a courthouse and I can usually figure out everything going on in a courtroom by just spending a few minutes observing. It took me a long time to realize how different that was from just about everybody else. It’s hard when you do this work every day to understand the high amounts of stress our clients feel just walking into the building, much less dealing with the case itself.
Going to court (particularly criminal court) is downright terrifying for most people. And it should be. There are so many unwritten rules that seem to change from court to court, there are armed bailiffs standing around, things sometimes happen that don’t make great sense and, on top of that, you’re dealing with your future on the line. The lawyers tend to speak their own language, seem not worried about things that would worry you, and really worried about stuff that seems downright trivial on the surface.
So the best thing I can tell you is to take a deep breath when you’ve got court. Do some yoga or meditation. Pray like you’ve never prayed before. Do whatever you need to do (in healthy moderation, of course) in order to keep your anxiety levels down when you’re at court. It can be really difficult to do, but it will help you a whole lot when you have to actually make some decisions.

]]><![CDATA[buzzing the highway, part 4th of July]]>Sat, 04 Jul 2015 17:01:01 GMThttp://www.ngwilliamslaw.com/legalese/buzzing-the-highway-part-4th-of-july

One More Thing, Well Two or Three

So what should one do if they feel like they’ve been wrongfully arrested? Shut up and be polite. This advice works for when you feel you’ve been rightfully arrested as well. Shut up and be polite. One of the worst effects of alcohol as far as my clients’ cases go is diarrhea of the mouth and constipation of the brain. Alcohol does a bang up job at destroying peoples’ internal filters and they often just go on and on about whatever happens to cross their minds which is compounded by the rightfully intense emotions that one feels upon being arrested.

Shut up and be polite. Everything that is being said and done by you is being recorded. Just about every Austin PD squad car is equipped with a camera facing forward, a camera facing the inside back of the car, and microphones on the police officer and inside the car. Everything you say and do is being recorded even if the officer is not in the car with you. You will not be able to come up with something clever to say to help your case. The officer will not let you go, will not call a cab for you, and will not make all of this go away. The more you ask, the more you talk, the more evidence you give that you really are drunk.

Being rude is just the icing on the cake of your conviction because no one (particularly prosecutors and jurors) likes a jerk. It’s fine to have righteous indignation. It’s fine to be offended at the way you are being treated. It’s fine to be upset and unhappy at being arrested. But you cannot show it. You’ve heard of angry, sad, happy, flirty and obnoxious drunks. What you haven’t heard of is the quiet, polite and calm drunk, and that’s what your lawyer wants to see in that arrest video because it’s going to make their job so much easier.

]]><![CDATA[buzzing the highway, part iii]]>Sat, 27 Jun 2015 17:01:01 GMThttp://www.ngwilliamslaw.com/legalese/buzzing-the-highway-part-iiiGiving a Bit of Yourself - Breath & Blood Samples

One of the typical questions asked of a potential jury at a DWI trial is whether or not they would give breath or blood if requested during a DWI investigation. Most people say sure, they would love to prove their innocence and avoid arrest. What most people don’t realize is that you are not given a chance to provide a real breath or blood sample prior to being arrested. That’s right, you are already under arrest for DWI before you are asked to provide a sample. While some officers do ask you to blow into a small portable breathalyzer prior to arrest, those results are not admissible in court and I have never heard of someone not being arrested after taking one of those.

So, should you give the cops a breath or blood sample? Let’s start with the easy (lazy) answer. If you really have had nothing to drink (at all), or really just one (single, uno, standard size) beer or wine, give them whatever they want. It is very difficult to get over a .08 blood alcohol content (the standard for intoxication in Texas) on that small of an amount of alcohol. Anything over that amount is risking things.

Do not make this decision based upon whether or not you feel drunk. Remember, if you’re drunk you don’t know what you’re feeling. There are lots of factors that determine how fast alcohol metabolizes in the body. These factors include gender, weight, stomach food content, liver function, genetics, etc. You also feel the effects of alcohol more when your BAC is going up than when it’s going down. So it’s just best to politely refuse the test and not give the cops and prosecutors more evidence than they already have. ]]><![CDATA[buzzing the highway, part ii]]>Sat, 20 Jun 2015 16:00:01 GMThttp://www.ngwilliamslaw.com/legalese/buzzing-the-highway-part-ii

Standardized Testing, Not Just for Kids Anymore

One of the most common questions I get asked is whether or not one should take the field sobriety tests (FST’s). And I always answer it like a lawyer. It depends. My lawyer advice is that if you have had just one beer or glass of wine, then do everything. Do all the tests, give them breath or blood, whatever they want. Please note that I was being specific when I said beer or wine. One glass of beer or wine for the vast majority of us will not lead to intoxication. However, when dealing with hard liquor or cocktails, that’s not an easy calculation to make. I’m looking at you purple margarita drinkers.

Now, what do you do if you have had more than one glass of beer or wine? What do you do if you’ve had more than zero glasses of anything else? Politely refuse everything. This bears repeating. If you have to do any math in trying to figure out what you had to drink, politely refuse everything. You have the right to refuse to do field sobriety tests. An officer can encourage, scold, whine, beg or plead for you to do the FST’s. But they cannot make you. Unfortunately, even if you are stone cold sober and refuse to take the FST’s (see the above paragraph), you are probably going to jail for DWI.

Now, you might be saying, “Did you just give me advice that you know will get me arrested?” Yes, yes I did. You see, FST’s are (in my always humble opinion and not backed up by the actual law) confessions. You are confessing with every word, step, stumble, hop and fall, your guilt. All of this is getting recorded for posterity and for use against you in the future. It is much better to be arrested with no evidence, than to be arrested anyway after you try to hold one leg up and face plant on the sidewalk instead. Being arrested is bad, but being convicted is worse. Understanding this upfront will make it much easier for you to be polite to the officer even when filled with righteous indignation.

I cannot stress enough that even if you feel that you did great on the field sobriety tests, you might still be arrested. Even if you haven’t had anything to drink at all or you really did just have one beer, you might still be arrested. The decision on whether or not you are going to jail is entirely in the hands of the officer grading those tests. And these are not objective tests. An officer has a lot of leeway in determining whether or not you passed them (yes officers, I know it’s not a pass/fail test, but come on!). While there are technical guidelines that the officers are supposed to follow, wide subjective power is given in determining whether the “totality of the circumstances” warrant an arrest for DWI.

]]><![CDATA[Buzzing the highway]]>Sat, 13 Jun 2015 21:36:45 GMThttp://www.ngwilliamslaw.com/legalese/buzzing-the-highway

How Much is Too Much?

Let me start out by saying that I am going to try to limit this article solely to Driving While Intoxicated as it pertains to alcohol consumption. When we’re talking about drugs (legal or otherwise), the factors become much more complicated and probably deserve an entire article unto themselves. In Texas, it is not illegal to drive after having consumed alcohol (as long as you are at least 21 years old, and not consuming it in the car, no roadies). It is only illegal to operate a motor vehicle while intoxicated. Intoxicated means having lost the normal use of your physical or mental faculties, or having a blood alcohol content (BAC) of .08 or higher.

That last part is important because it gets to the issue of tolerance. Everyone has a different tolerance level that is dependent upon size, gender, race, history and genetic disposition. The highest BAC I have personally seen on a client was .429. For you non-math people out there that’s over five times the legal limit. It is also well past the level that should kill you. And do you know what? She didn’t look that bad. If I were to guess after having seen hundreds of DWI arrest videos, I would have said around a .14 or .15.

The point of that story is that you cannot determine whether or not you fall under the definition of intoxicated merely by how you look and feel. I would say that a lot of my clients have gotten in trouble merely because they felt okay. If there is any doubt whatsoever in whether you’ve had too much to drive, then don’t get behind the wheel. Get a cab, get a ride, walk, whatever you need to do to get home safely. Don’t risk an arrest or worse just because you aren’t feeling it that much.

]]><![CDATA[The Get out of (not so free) jail card]]>Wed, 22 Apr 2015 07:00:02 GMThttp://www.ngwilliamslaw.com/legalese/the-get-out-of-not-so-free-jail-card 1. Why is it So Cold in Here?

So, right or wrong, you’ve been arrested. You’ve been handcuffed, put in the back of a police car, you may or may not have been read what are known as the Miranda warnings (story for another day), taken to jail, photographed, fingerprinted, and given a nice grey and white stylish outfit to wear that does nothing to keep out the drafts. Overall, not what most people consider a fun way to spend some hours.

The next thing that happens is something called magistration. That’s where a judge will review an Affidavit of Probable Cause to determine if there is enough evidence to continue keeping you in jail (most likely yes) and sets a bond. In misdemeanor cases, a bond must be set within 24 hours. In felonies, the bond must be set within 48 hours. Typically, magistration will occur somewhere between 4 and 6 hours after you get to jail. This is not the time for you to express your moral outrage at the injustice of your situation. You want to keep anything you say limited to “Yes, ma’am/sir/Your Honor.” Or “No, ma’am/sir/Your Honor.” Anything else is likely to result in you failing the attitude test (an important test throughout the legal process) which in turn may lead to you staying there longer or having a higher bond.

What’s a bond, you say? Well, the easy answer is that it is an amount of money that you or someone else will have to put up now or at a later time to help make sure you come back to court. There are three main types of bonds: the personal (or personal recognizance) bond, the surety bond, and the cash bond. The amount of the bond can be somewhat of a gauge on how serious your case is. Typically, misdemeanors are lower and felonies are higher. It is also influenced by known criminal history, whether or not there is a victim, and the above mentioned attitude test.

You should also know that the judge might set conditions on your bond, no matter the type. The typical conditions include classes (alcohol, drug, family violence), alcohol monitoring devices (DWI’s), or location monitoring devices (serious cases involving violence). Make sure you comply with these conditions to the letter. If you don’t, the judge can revoke your bond and throw you back in jail even if you’ve gone to every court date. I wish it didn’t need to be said, but don’t commit any additional crimes while on bond. That will get your bond revoked as well.

Oh, and it’s cold because deputies wear lots of layers. Those bulletproof vests don’t really breathe for some reason. Therefore, they turn the AC down real low. On top of that, jail outfits are made of really thin cloth. It’s not a combo that leads to comfort for inmates, but you’ve got bigger problems at the moment. You need to get the hell out of there.

2. It’s Not Personal

The most common way that someone gets out of jail is the personal bond, sometimes called the personal recognizance bond. A personal bond is basically you promising to come back to court. You will receive a date to return to an office called Court Administration. There you will be told when and where your case has actually been assigned. If you don’t return to court, then the county can and will sue you for the amount of the bond.

Now once you actually get to the jail and are booked in, an office called Pretrial Services will probably interview you. They are trying to gauge whether or not you are a risk of not returning to court. Once they are done interviewing you, they will call the contacts that you provide them to see if you really do live where you said you live. If they can verify your info, you don’t have a huge criminal record and you pass the attitude test, then you should get out of jail on a personal bond in a matter of a few hours.

If Pretrial Services does not sign off on you getting a personal bond, it is still possible to get one. However, you will most likely have to hire a lawyer. Hiring a lawyer tells the court that you are putting some money down and are more likely to come back for your court date. Whether or not you hire a lawyer or get out on your own with a personal bond, you will still have to pay the $20 fee to Pretrial Services. Make sure you do that right away.

3. Bail Bonding is Not Quite Male Bonding (sorry)

The second most common way for someone to get out of jail is through a surety bond. The vast majority of surety bonds are handled by bail bondsmen (not trying to be sexist here, I’ve never seen the word bondswoman before). Basically, you pay a bail bondsmen an amount of money (on average between 10 and 15% of the bond amount, but it varies). The bondman then basically promises the court that you will return to court whenever you’re supposed to be there. If you stop going to court, then the bondsman will be on the hook for the entire amount of the bond. They don’t like that and may send someone to personally make sure you come back (bounty hunter).

Understand, however, that any amount you pay to a bondsman for a surety bond is their fee. You will not be getting that back. Ever. Case gets thrown out before you ever get to court. Not getting it back. Case gets dismissed. Not getting it back. You go to trial and are acquitted. Not getting it back. That is just one of the many costs of law enforcement getting involved in your life.

4. In God We Trust, All Others Must Pay in Cash

The easiest (and generally most expensive) way to get out of jail is the cash bond. A cash bond is exactly what it sounds like. You (or generally a family member, friend, or really awesome boss) bring the entire amount of the bond to the sheriff’s office. They prefer cash (hence the name), although certified funds like a cashier’s check or money order will do as well. They will not accept a credit card or personal check. The nice thing about the cash bond is that when the case is resolved (even if it results in a conviction), the money is sent back to the defendant.

You can also tell the clerk’s office to send the money to someone else, typically the person who paid the money (family member, friend, or really awesome boss). This can be useful in paying your attorney. Many lawyers will accept an assignment of the funds as payment or partial payment of their fees. So if you do get out on a cash bond, make sure you tell your attorney about it for we are greedy and like to get paid.

Although it is rare, I have heard of supposed bail bondsmen who ask for the entire amount of the bond in order to help get someone out of jail. This is a scam. They are not going to put up a surety bond. They are going to put up a cash bond, but they will assign the bond to themselves so they get paid the entire amount when the case is over. If you can come up with the entire bond amount, for heaven’s sake, go give the money to the sheriff directly and then use that bond to pay your lawyer.

5. If It’s Just a Ticket, Do I Still Have to Show Up?

There are a few crimes out there (Driving While License Suspended, Possession of Marijuana, Shoplifting) where the police have the option of doing something called Cite and Release. Basically, the officer writes you a ticket, just like he would if you were caught committing a Class C misdemeanor such as speeding or creating an obnoxious odor (my favorite Class C, by the way). Either the Austin Municipal Court or one of the various Justice of the Peace courts around town typically handles class C tickets.

Cite and Release cases are different. They are typically Class B crimes that used to mean a ride to the station and all the fun from Section 1 up there. Now, an officer has the option to right what appears to be just a ticket, which is why some people don’t take them seriously. Those people are making really bad decisions. If you don’t show up and go through the personal bond process they have set up for these, not only will you have a warrant for the original charge, the County Attorney’s office will file bail jumping charges as well.

]]><![CDATA[how to not get arrested for drug possession]]>Mon, 20 Apr 2015 15:59:26 GMThttp://www.ngwilliamslaw.com/legalese/how-to-not-get-arrested-for-drug-possession2part 4 of 4

4. No Really, I Have a Prescription (not pot)

Let’s say you have a medical condition (don’t we all?) such as Restless Leg Syndrome (http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/restless_legs/detail_restless_legs.htm). One of the treatments for this condition is the prescription drug Xanax. Now, let’s say that you’re going on a weekend trip to Rockport (I hear it’s great this time of year). You don’t want to lug around your prescription bottle along with your vitamin supplements, ginseng, daily aspirin, etc. So you go to the local CVS (love those guys) and buy one of those little stylish pill cases http://www.cvs.com/shop/product-detail/CVS-Fashion-Pill-Case?skuId=460701. Problem solved, right?

Nope. Guess what? You have just now exposed yourself to being arrested for Possession or a Controlled Substance (felony or misdemeanor) or Possession of a Dangerous Drug (misdemeanor) depending upon the actual drug and amount. You see, when something happens that causes the officer to find this pill case (see Rule #1), he/she will not believe you when you tell them that you have a prescription. They may not even believe you if you have the actual prescription pad sheet on you, which doesn’t happen much these days because it is either kept by the pharmacist or the doctor calls in the prescription to your local CVS (did I mention that I love those guys?).

Now, I’m not saying that you’re going to be convicted of it. Having a valid prescription for the medication is an absolute defense in a case like this. But guess what? You will only be able to make that defense after you’ve been arrested, after you have gotten out of jail, after you have hired a lawyer, and after you’ve gone to court. While it is inconvenient (and a bit ridiculous) to carry around your pill bottle with all of your pills (see below), it is really the only sure way to avoid getting arrested for having your own medication on you.

On a side note, let’s say you’re meeting your best friend down in Rockport. While there, your friend discovers that they secretly have a pathological fear of calm ocean waves and they go into an immediate anxiety attack. Being the good person, you offer said friend one of your Xanax, because they need it and you’re not about to make them wait and pay a ton of money for a visit to the ER where they’ll probably give your friend Xanax or something similar anyway. Guess what? The law now considers you a drug dealer. I’m not saying you shouldn’t do it, but just be aware. A little paranoia never hurts in these types of situations.

One last thing. Don’t empty out your prescription bottle and just take the two Xanax pills you’re going to need for the weekend. It’s far more practical to do that especially if you’re worried that prescription bottles are easy to see and can become targets of thieves. The problem is that the bottles have pill counts on the side along with the date you got them and the prescribed daily dosage. If/when you have your encounter with law enforcement, and they see that you have 2 pills in there when you should have 23, their first thought is that you are a drug dealer and the conversation is going to get a lot longer.

If it made sense, I wouldn’t have a job.

]]><![CDATA[how to not get arrested for drug possession]]>Thu, 16 Apr 2015 15:58:48 GMThttp://www.ngwilliamslaw.com/legalese/how-to-not-get-arrested-for-drug-possession1part 3 of 4

3. But I Have a Prescription (pot)

Congratulations, you have just visited one of the many “clinics” in a state that allows “medical” marijuana and you have a prescription. I am not saying that marijuana cannot be useful for the treatment of some symptoms or conditions. But let’s be honest. A large number of people with prescriptions for marijuana are merely suffering from a lack of marijuana. Legalizing medical marijuana is just a way to get the general population to be comfortable with the eventual general legalization of it. **cue hate mail**

However, Texas has no such allowance yet. It has never been a solid defense, nor will it be one any time in the near future, that you are allowed to have it on you or in your car if you have a prescription for it. Even if you are just passing through Texas from a state that allows medical marijuana to another state that allows medical marijuana, it is still illegal. If you wanted to use that defense, you’d have to be carrying something far less dangerous like a concealed handgun.

And really, you should know better. Please don’t ever use this as a defense. It will only lead to your lawyer rolling their eyes and reminding you of Rule #1.

]]><![CDATA[how to not get arrested for drug possesion]]>Mon, 13 Apr 2015 15:57:56 GMThttp://www.ngwilliamslaw.com/legalese/how-to-not-get-arrested-for-drug-possesionpart 2 of 4

2. Leave that Shi … Stuff at Home

The typical drug case that I encounter starts off with a traffic stop. The officer approaches the car, smells marijuana, the car is searched and marijuana is found. Now, whole books have been written about traffic stops, whether or not smell is admissible evidence, consent to search, and warrantless searches. I don’t care about any of those issues for our purposes here, because those books would never had been written if the drugs (typically marijuana) had never been in the car in the first place.

I think it’s a safe bet to say that at least 95% of my Possession of Marijuana (POM) clients were arrested after pot (the kids are still calling it that, right?) was found in their car or on them after a traffic stop. Why are you driving around with pot in your car? Granted, maybe you just got it and you’re taking it home. But I have never had that happen to a client in fourteen years of practice. Never. So that means they consciously put it in their car.

“But I forgot it was there!” Now, that’s just stupid (see Rule #0). “My friend left it there.” Then your friend needs to see Rule #0. “They had no right to search my car!” You may be correct, but you’re still going to have to go through the hassle of the criminal process, aren’t you? Wouldn’t it be better to avoid having to deal with that in the first place? And let’s talk about smell. That’s usually how the cop knows to ask about it in the first place. The nose is an amazing thing. Not only can it detect odors, it (or your brain, I’m not a doctor) can stop detecting odors that it has grown used to. So even though you may not be able to smell it, a cop who hasn’t been sitting in a car with pot all day/week (the supervisors usually frown upon that) can easily smell it even when it is cleverly hidden under a Whataburger cup.

There is a much higher burden for officers to get into and/or search your home than there is for them to search your car. It’s not an impossible burden, it’s just much less likely to happen. If you are minding your own business at home and not causing any other trouble (see Rule #0), you are unlikely to ever have an officer in your home and finding your stash.

]]><![CDATA[How to not get arrested for drug possession]]>Thu, 09 Apr 2015 15:56:05 GMThttp://www.ngwilliamslaw.com/legalese/how-to-not-get-arrested-for-drug-possessionpart 1 of 4

1. Kids, Don’t Do Drugs

This starts, as always, with Rule #1. Don’t commit any crimes, but if you do, don’t be stupid about it. Now I am not here to advocate in one direction or the other over whether or not marijuana or any other substance should be legal or illegal. On one hand, I have yet to have a client get totally baked and beat up their significant other. On the other, addiction is a real and scary thing that destroys lives and families. If you feel you have a problem, you should get help immediately. And it doesn’t have to cost money. AA and NA work and they are free. Furthermore, I fully endorse a strict age requirement for the possession and use of marijuana (or other substances) in jurisdictions where it is or becomes legal. The teenage brain is not equipped to handle even moderate amounts of alcohol, marijuana or most other controlled substances.

And let’s talk about a very real danger. I would urge anyone who uses an illegal (or so new the law hasn’t caught up with calling it illegal) substance to be very, very careful in what you try and whom you get it from. There are some substances out there that are just plain scary (bath salts, PCP) and others that probably don’t even work (K2). Even the supposed “safe” drugs can easily be adulterated or tainted leading to serious consequences. http://kxan.com/2014/05/03/six-new-k2-overdoses-in-downtown-austin-saturday/ Again, be careful. Getting high is never worth dying over.

So, now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, one of the most important things to remember is …

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