A good friend of mine related to me that he/she was for some reason out late and night and accidentally damaged an an automobile with the automobile under his control. Instead of remaining on the scene he allegedly left. To knowledge, the owner of the damaged automobile called the police upon discovering that their automobile was (badly) damaged. My friend said he went to a police station to turn himself in but took his insurance card. He told me that that the police officer at the station asked him specifically if he had hired an attorney to represent him regarding the criminal aspects of the matter (i.e. likely felony hit and run).
Now this is very interesting: He said that the cop told him specifically that if he had hired an attorney to represent him that the cop would have had to arrest him. You might want to read that again. Now he had told him that he had come down there per advisement of counsel (he was alluding to me). But it was clear that despite counsel he did not hire an attorney to represent him (with respect to criminal litigation) before going there to turn himself.
So I was told that the cop said: "Well so the reason you didn't stop is because were tired and not thinking?" My friend was like "Yeah." To bring things to a close, my friend had said that the cop took his insurance card and ID and ran it through the system, verified it and said. "See ya". Because he went in there to settle without having initiated an argument and because he didn't hire an attorney to represent him criminally, seems the cop was able to facilitate the settlement vis-a-vis insurance.
Before he/she told me the story he said "Hey. Remember how you told me about hiring attorneys in certain matters?" Then he/she related the story. My friend related this all to me face to face so I know first hand that he was not in jail.He said that he chose to listen to my advice so he didn't hire an attorney before going to the police station.
Friend has SSN, regular ID, commercial DL and all that. No special 'papering' (i.e. papers filed). Perhaps a matter worth pondering.
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