“Correct. Not only am I not obligated to do so, I am obligated not to do so. Let me explain something.” Hubbard cocked his curly head, seeming to address Ryan, mainly. “The way I think about this is simple. My job is to help you. There are rules about how far I can go in helping you. For example, I can’t ethically assist you in covering up wrongdoing, and I wouldn’t. But the way the American system works is that the prosecution has to prove that somebody did something wrong. That person, called the defendant, doesn’t ever have to help them do that. You get to remain silent, just like they say on TV. That right is guaranteed to you by the Constitution. Understand?”
“Yes,” Ryan answered, his tone quiet.
“I represent people accused of crimes. My job is to represent my clients fully and zealously, to the best of my ability. I don’t involve myself with their guilt or innocence. I don’t even ask my clients if they’re guilty. You understand?”
“Not really.” Ryan frowned. “Doesn’t it matter to you if they’re guilty or not?”
Listening, Jake felt secretly proud of his son. Ryan didn’t understand because he expected the law to lead to justice, not thwart it.
Hubbard nodded, acknowledging the question. “It doesn’t matter to me because I’m not the judge. I’m the defense lawyer. My job is to represent you. I make sure that you have the array of protections the law affords you. The Commonwealth has a lot of resources at its disposal that you’ll never have, no matter who your father is. Or your mother.”
Ryan blinked, and so did Jake, both of them getting the message. Hubbard was telling them he knew who Pam was, and he had probably already guessed that they had called him about the hit-and-run on Pike Road. And Hubbard’s subliminal message—whether Ryan was getting it or not, Jake couldn’t tell—was that he distinctly did not want to be told who was driving the car that night, so he could maintain deniability. In fact, Jake realized that Hubbard could be assuming Ryan was alone in the car.
Hubbard turned and faced Jake, his eyes small and dark blue behind his glasses. “Now, would you like to fill me in?”
“Certainly.” Jake chose his words carefully. “To make a long story short, we left the scene of a car accident, without calling the police or 911, after we had ascertained that the pedestrian was dead and unresponsive to CPR. We were wondering what our legal obligation was, at this point.”
“Are you asking me if you have a legal obligation to turn yourselves in?”
“Yes.”
“No, you do not. You have no such legal obligation.”
“I see.” Jake shot Ryan a glance. He had guessed correctly that there was no legal obligation, only a moral one, which paradoxically, wasn’t the same thing.
“As your lawyer, I would be under no obligation to counsel you to go to the police. My sole inquiry would be, what can I do for you, legally. I would begin by asking if you had an alibi—”
Ryan interrupted, “But what if we wanted to go to the police and tell them everything? What would the police do? Can we explain what happened?”
“Ryan—” Jake started to say, but Hubbard waved him off.
“Ryan, that’s a good question. I’m happy to answer it. You’re always free to go to the police. But, if that was something that you both decided you wanted to do, I would make sure that before you did it, we arranged a plea bargain.” Hubbard spoke slowly, without judgment. “Let me explain what a plea bargain would be in this case. Under 75 Pennsylvania Code Section 3744, an adult who strikes and kills someone with a car, and does not remain at the scene, call the police, and give information, is guilty of vehicular homicide and leaving the scene of an accident. That’s a felony of the second degree, carrying a five-year prison sentence—”
“It wasn’t an adult who killed someone, it was me,” Ryan interrupted again, and Hubbard pursed his lips in his dense beard.
Jake felt his heart sink, but he didn’t want to upset Ryan by telling him that he’d just said the exact wrong thing. “Ryan, let Mr. Hubbard continue, then you can ask questions later.”
Hubbard nodded. “Ryan, let me finish. I think I’ll be answering your question.”
“Dad, no.” Ryan shook his head. “I don’t want him to think you did anything wrong. You were just in the car. I want him to know I was driving and I was the one who hit her.”
“It’s okay, buddy.” Jake turned to Hubbard, and the two men locked eyes, both of them tacitly understanding that Jake’s cover story, in which he was the driver, was now blown. “Mr. Hubbard, you were saying?”
Hubbard relinked his short fingers. “So in the case where the driver is unlicensed and—”
“I have a learner’s permit,” Ryan broke in.
“Okay,” Hubbard continued, “the driver has a learner’s permit. But he’s driving outside of the restricted hours, yes?”
“Yes.”
“Dad is in the passenger seat, presumably having permitted son to drive, correct?”
“Yes,” Ryan answered, but Hubbard turned to Jake.
“Jake, are you aware of the doctrine of negligent entrustment?”
“No,” Jake answered, but he could figure out the gist. “I’m at fault because I let him drive, right?”
“Correct, but it’s more serious than that, in the event of a fatality. It’s criminal.”
Jake swallowed hard. “I didn’t know that.”
“Most people don’t, and I can see that you’ve been more worried about your son’s legal responsibility, than your own.” Hubbard’s expression softened. “I understand, I have a son, myself. You thought of him first.”
“What’s my legal responsibility?” Jake asked, feeling his heartbeat quicken.
“You would be charged with permitting violation of title, in breach of 75 Pennsylvania Code Section 1575, and you would be charged as an accomplice to involuntary manslaughter for negligently entrusting an underage driver to drive. The penalty can be up to five years in prison.”
Ryan gasped. “What? My dad would go to jail? But he didn’t do anything!”
“He would be charged with an F2, a felony of the second degree.”
Jake absorbed the information, momentarily speechless. He had known it was wrong to let Ryan drive, but he never would have expected it had legal implications, much less a prison sentence.
“No!” Ryan started shaking his head, agitated. “Mr. Hubbard, really, my dad just sat there, in the passenger seat! He didn’t do anything wrong!”
Hubbard nodded calmly, in Jake’s direction. “Yes, he did. He let you drive. You’re an underage driver. As such, if your father permits you to drive and you have a fatal accident, your father is legally more culpable than you. He is a person in a position of authority over you and he was supervising you. The law views him as running the show, not you.”
“That’s not fair, I was driving!” Ryan cried out, and Jake reached over and put a hand on his arm.
“Ryan, let him tell us the law and we’ll sort it out later.”
“No!” Ryan shook his head vehemently. “Mr. Hubbard, let me just ask you this, if we went to the police right now, and we told them I was driving and my dad was in the passenger seat, what would they do?”
“Without a plea bargain?”
“Yes, without a plea bargain, if we just went and told them the truth, everything, even that I smoked up before the movie, because that’s why my dad didn’t call the cops. He wanted to call 911, he told me to, but he knew they’d test me. Are you telling me they’d put him in jail?”
“Yes, they would,” Hubbard answered. “To reiterate, your father would be charged with involuntary manslaughter and sentenced to five years in prison. You, as the driver, would probably be charged as a juvenile and enter the juvenile system.”
Jake heard that one glimmer of hope. “So Ryan wouldn’t be tried as an adult?”
“Probably not, if they had you. If he were charged as an adult, which is always possible, I would move to decertify and have him tried as a juvenile. Still I couldn’t guarantee I would prevail. He’s so big and well-spoken. He doesn’t come off like a child. He comes off like an adult.”
“But he’s sixteen. That’s young.”
“It’s in between, these days. He looks like an adult. I call it ‘the falsehood of physicality,’ but it hurts him in court. I know from bitter experience.” Hubbard inhaled briefly. “Let me explain the differences between the juvenile system and the adult system.”