Francois McKinnon: Welcome to the Miami PI Chronicles podcast. I’m your host Francois McKinnon from McKinnon Investigative Group. And I’m Oscar Santamaria of Optimum Investigations. We created this podcast with the goal to educate, inform, and entertain aspiring, beginner, and seasoned professionals in the investigative field. With over 60 years of combined experience, we offer invaluable insights and lessons learned. While we may not have all the answers, our knowledge can certainly benefit anyone interested in this dynamic profession. So sit back, listen, and enjoy these episodes. Please do not forget to like, share, and follow.
Welcome back to the show. I am with Oscar and renowned criminal attorney Jonathan Friedman. Good afternoon, Jon. Thank you for being on the show. We know it is a Sunday and we appreciate you being here.
Jonathan Friedman: Not a problem.
Francois McKinnon: We wanted you to tell the audience about yourself and your practice.
Jonathan Friedman: Sure. I practice exclusively criminal defense work. I do criminal cases in state and federal court and I have been practicing for a little over 30 years here in South Florida. I handle cases throughout the whole state of Florida, and the federal cases I handle in Florida as well as all over the country. I have handled cases in New York, Connecticut, South Carolina, Texas, and other states. Criminal defense is all I have done my whole career. I am board certified and have been board certified since 2000 as a criminal trial lawyer here in the state of Florida. I am the Law Office of Jonathan Friedman. I have had some associates throughout the years and some support staff but I am otherwise a solo practitioner.
Francois McKinnon: What was your first job out of law school?
Jonathan Friedman: As a lawyer, I was an assistant public defender. I got hired at the public defender’s office in Broward County. Before that I should say, everyone may wonder, was it my dream to be a defense lawyer? The truth is I really wanted to be a police officer, an FBI agent. That was my dream when I went to law school. Somehow in the midst of everything I did a complete turn and ended up at the public defender’s office. I met a man named Howard Finkelstein who ended up becoming the public defender of Broward County. He has since retired. But I basically started hanging around defense lawyers, helping them with their cases, and before long I was offered a job right out of law school. That is where I got my start.
Francois McKinnon: So you experienced both sides of the law in your education. A lot of people these days complain that the criminal justice system is not fair. What is your opinion? Is it a fair system?
Jonathan Friedman: I think it is a fair system to the extent that a lot of people hear things on the news and my take is that nobody really just gets off. There is always something behind every case, always some sort of consequence. If somebody does get off it is generally because they went to trial and the jury did not feel the prosecution proved their case beyond a reasonable doubt. In that sense it is really the jury system working as it should. You have to present your facts, you present your defense, the state presents their case, and at the end of the day it is left to a jury to decide. I think that is fair.
Francois McKinnon: Do you think AI is going to replace any part of the legal system, maybe juries, paralegals, law clerks?
Jonathan Friedman: I do not think it will ever replace juries. There is already a movement of AI coming into the legal field for research. I was recently at a conference where they were discussing how Westlaw has a new feature where you can type in a natural language query and it will return case law and relevant material. That is an AI feature. You can also put a long motion into an AI application and ask it to summarize it or pick out the key points. I have actually started using it and it cuts down on time significantly. So yes, AI is coming into the legal field for sure. But replacing jurors? I cannot imagine that. You still need someone to conduct the research and ultimately write the motions and memorandums. There is a human touch there that I do not know can be replaced. AI is amazing but it is really in its infancy. I would imagine in a few years, who knows. I never thought when I started 30 years ago that we would have these phones in our hands that control our whole lives. It is amazing.
Francois McKinnon: Jonathan, which case comes back to you the most? One of your most memorable?
Jonathan Friedman: I have so many memorable cases. You want to hear a funny one? Everybody needs to laugh.
I remember representing a woman who was charged in connection with a sting operation a local city was running. They were going online finding escorts and inviting them into the city, setting up a sting at a local hotel with rooms that were all wired up. Some of these women were from out of the county entirely but the city was inviting and soliciting them in. My client got a call, came to the location, and it was all on video. The undercover detective working the sting took things to a point that I honestly did not think they were allowed to go to. At a certain point he gave the takedown signal and officers from an adjoining room came in and made the arrest.
When I started reviewing the video I showed it to some of my lawyer friends because it was remarkable. And one of them said to me, that is egregious. And sure enough after I looked at the research I filed a motion to dismiss based on egregious police conduct. I got it set for hearing, the judge played the video, I had the detective on the stand and walked him through every moment. I kept stopping the video and asking, why did you not make the arrest when the money was exchanged? The crime was committed at that point. His answer to everything was officer safety. The judge ended up dismissing the case based on egregious police conduct. That is a memorable one.
But I have handled murder cases, rape cases, gang cases, drug cases, wire fraud cases. I have tried over a hundred cases. You and I worked together on narco trafficking cases. We had multiple clients at the same time in jail. You would do your work, I would do mine, and some of the things those clients told us were just unbelievable. Do you remember the drug conspiracy case where they told us they had buried money in the backyard of a home?
Francois McKinnon: I remember. And there was also a case involving Palm Beach where they were talking about bodies, not money.
Jonathan Friedman: Yes, that is right. There were two separate cases. One involved money buried in the backyard and the other involved Palm Beach and something far more serious. I do not want to mention names. We keep everything anonymous to protect the innocent. But yes, we had so many cases together.
There was another case where our client was out on bond and getting phone calls from an inmate inside the jail. The inmate made exculpatory statements directly to our client, essentially saying he did it, not the client. You were able to get hold of that tape.
Francois McKinnon: That was a significant amount of work. I had to get the jail call recordings, the phone records, and then I was also able to pull surveillance footage from clubs in the area after the fact. On that footage you could clearly see our client was not involved in any way. The case was dropped entirely. The guy walked.
Jonathan Friedman: That is the kind of investigative work that makes the difference. A lot of people do not realize how much goes on behind the scenes in criminal defense.
Francois McKinnon: Jonathan, you have seen a lot of violent images, videos, and firsthand knowledge of how prevalent crime is. Does that give you a level of paranoia day to day?
Jonathan Friedman: I do not think I lose sleep at night, but in my day to day activity I am definitely more aware. If I kept track from the beginning of my practice of every place in Florida where I represented someone in a crime and put a pin on a map, that map would be completely covered. When it comes to something as common as a DUI, I know from handling dozens and dozens of those cases that if a police officer detects any odor of alcohol on your breath it does not matter how you were driving. You are going to jail. A lot of lawyers will tell people that if you only had one beer you will not get arrested. I know differently. The officer smells alcohol, that is enough. Does that make me more cautious? Yes it does. I always tell my son to be careful when he goes out. He rolls his eyes because he is young and does not have 30 years of seeing these cases the way I have.
Francois McKinnon: Have you ever been afraid of one of your clients?
Jonathan Friedman: People ask me that all the time. I am defending these guys, they have no reason to fear me and I have no real reason to fear them. I had one client years ago who had a radio show and used to talk about me publicly, which made me uncomfortable not out of fear but because of what he might say. He was actually an entertainer who made music. After we went to trial and unfortunately he lost, he recorded a professional song about the prosecutor. He asked me to give it to the prosecutor and I never did. I think not until that prosecutor had long retired did I ever mention it. It was funny, just about the case and how it was handled. I wonder if I still have that recording somewhere.
Francois McKinnon: Was there a movie or television show that inspired you to go into law?
Jonathan Friedman: The movie that really depicts what I do more than almost any other is The Lincoln Lawyer. In the opening scenes the lawyer is moving between courtrooms, talking with bailiffs, just navigating the system the way it actually works. It gave me goosebumps the first time I watched it because it was so accurate. I was actually driving a Lincoln at the time that movie came out so all my friends started calling me the Lincoln Lawyer.
Francois McKinnon: And what do you like to do outside of work?
Jonathan Friedman: I play guitar. I actually learned while I was studying for the bar exam because bar prep is so tedious you cannot sit for hours without a break. My brother gave me an acoustic guitar and every 20 or 30 minutes I would put down the books and try to learn a chord. Before long I had learned a few and it went from there. Now I enjoy playing at home after a stressful day. A lot of my friends know I play so we will get together and make up songs about cases we have handled. They are almost like folk songs, acoustic melodies where everyone joins in and throws in lines. Some of them I have recorded somewhere. They are just funny case stories set to music. We laugh a lot.
Francois McKinnon: Who are your top three guitarists?
Jonathan Friedman: Eddie Van Halen, Neil Young, and a guitarist named Emmanuel. If you look him up on YouTube he is just an incredible finger picker. And my favorite band is Rush.
Francois McKinnon: Jonathan, can you tell our audience how to reach you for a consultation?
Jonathan Friedman: My office number is 954-713-2820 and my email is [email protected]. That is the letter J, then Friedman spelled F-R-I-E-D-M-A-N, then lawfirm, all one word, at gmail.com.
Francois McKinnon: Thank you so much for being on the show Jonathan and we would love to have you back. If you would like to send us comments or questions please do so at [email protected]. Thanks for listening.
This episode is sponsored by the Law Office of Diana Santamaria, personal injury and medical malpractice attorney. For a free consultation call 1-800-668-2156. For all of your investigative and security needs visit the Spy Shops in Fort Lauderdale or go online at www.spyshops.com. For a true beach paradise experience in South Florida, visit Ocean Manor Beach Hotel in Fort Lauderdale. For more information call 1-800-995-0444.
SHARE:
