WTDW Podcast | Episode 87: What To Do When… You Are Caught in Tunnel Vision.

by | Jun 19, 2025 | Criminal Law, Family Law, Jackie Critzer, Juvenile Criminal Defense, Juvenile Law, Layered Up, Media, Scott Cardani, Video, WTDW Podcast

What To Do When... You Are Caught in Tunnel Vision

Tunnel Vision, scapegoat, Layered Up, Burden of Proof, Legal System, reasonable doubt, evidence bias, corporate investigations, social media impact, group think, public opinion, legal counsel, wrongful conviction, exculpatory evidence, criminal defense, media influence, legal perspective

What To Do When… You Are Caught in Tunnel Vision.

 

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The objective of the What To Do When… podcast is to discuss common legal scenarios faced by everyday citizens in Virginia. Critzer and Cardani practice law throughout Virginia and focus their practice around the state’s capital of Richmond, in the Piedmont region. Tune in and subscribe to learn about legal topics such as reckless driving by speeding, bad lawyers, Layering Up, juvenile defense, juvenile sex crimes, reckless driving, divorce 101, Child Support, There is Still Hope, and others.

What To Do When… You Are Caught in Tunnel Vision.

On this legal video podcast chat in Critzer Cardani’s What To Do When… podcast series, join our hosts Jackie Critzer and Scott Cardani as they chat about Criminal and also Family Law in What To Do When… You Are Caught In Tunnel Vision. In this episode of “What to Do When,” hosts Jackie Critzer and Scott Cardani discuss the concept of “tunnel vision” in legal scenarios, where an individual is wrongfully targeted as the sole suspect. They explain how tunnel vision can occur in criminal cases, corporate investigations, and even in personal disputes like divorces. The conversation highlights the importance of having a competent attorney who can recognize and challenge tunnel vision. They also discuss the role of social media and public opinion in reinforcing tunnel vision and the need for critical thinking and thorough investigation. Examples include the Duke lacrosse case and a wrongful conviction case where exculpatory evidence was withheld. The partners of Critzer Cardani PC emphasize the necessity of finding a skilled attorney and avoiding the pitfalls of group think and social media frenzy.

Tune in today for not only our top take-aways, but also some chat about the following subject matters and other helpful action items from a ‘legal chat slant’ from Critzer Cardani’s legal partners.

* * Understanding Tunnel Vision in Legal Case Scenarios
* Jackie Critzer introduces the topic of tunnel vision, where individuals are wrongfully targeted as scapegoats by investigators or corporations.
* Scott Cardani explains that tunnel vision occurs when someone is accused of a crime, and investigators focus solely on them, disregarding other evidence or theories.
* Corporate Tunnel Vision Examples
* Challenges of Breaking Tunnel Vision
* Impact of Social Media and Group Think
* Importance of Good Legal Representation in Breaking Tunnel Vision
* Scott Cardani shares an example of a case where a good attorney uncovered cultural differences that helped break tunnel vision and save a client from the death penalty.

Watch the Videos, Listen to the Audio versions and / or Follow, Like, and Share… “What To Do When…” Legal Chat Podcast from Critzer Cardani PC.

The objective of the What To Do When… podcast is to discuss common legal scenarios faced by everyday citizens in Virginia. Critzer and Cardani practice law throughout Virginia and focus their practice around the state’s capital of Richmond, in the Piedmont region. Tune in and subscribe to learn about legal topics such as reckless driving by speeding, bad lawyers, Will Knows Weed, juvenile defense, juvenile sex crimes, reckless driving, the legalization of marijuana in Virginia, divorce 101, Child Support, There is Still Hope and others.

Thank you for sending us your feedback, questions, or topic suggestions for future #WTDW | What To Do When… episodes by emailing [email protected].

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Transcript:

What To Do When… Intro 00:01
Welcome to What To Do When… A podcast from real lawyers with real perspective, where we explore a variety of legal issues and scenarios. Each week we focus on a new topic and discuss what to do when and if any of these legal scenarios ever happened to you or a loved one. With over 40 years of combined legal experience, our hosts offer their unique perspectives and insights on a range of real life legal situations.

Jackie Critzer 0:28

Hi. Welcome back to another episode of What To Do When… here at Critzer Cardani in Richmond, Virginia. I’m Jackie.

Scott Cardani 0:34

I’m Scott. Jackie, what’s on the docket for today?

Jackie Critzer 0:39
Today’s docket Scott is What To Do When… You Are Caught in the Tunnel Vision.

Scott Cardani 0:44
Tunnel vision? What is that?

Jackie Critzer 0:46
Unfortunately, that’s when you’re caught by investigators or detectives, or even maybe a corporation as being sort of this scapegoat, and they have determined judge, jury, executioner. You’re the target. You’re it.

Scott Cardani 1:01
Okay. Yeah, we’re talking about here like you’re you’re accused of a crime. And so they don’t even look at anybody else. They’re looking at you. They think you did it. They believe you did it. And doesn’t matter what the facts are. It doesn’t matter what is. That’s what tunnel vision is, is when somebody has that perspective about you. It could be in a divorce, could be almost anything, that you’re the bad actor, and there’s no way that’s going to be changed, right?

Jackie Critzer 1:27
And everything that that is found evidentiary wise, or evidence wise, all they’re looking for is evidence against you to begin with, right? So that every Oh, we have more supporting evidence. We have more well, you have evidence to support your theory. But is that really supporting the that the actual agenda? Is that the is that the real crime?

Scott Cardani 1:50
Yes, does it support the crime, folks? And this is really a really tough thing, because, you know, both sides have a really tough job in this. You know, police officers have a tough job trying to figure out who committed the crime, sometimes in that. But you know, one of the biggest things is we’re required to do and our legal system should be and quite frankly, we have been there for a while, my opinion. But we’re supposed to be innocent until proven guilty.

Jackie Critzer 2:15
Right.

Scott Cardani 2:15
That means when the facts line up to say, Yeah, beyond the reasonable doubt, this is the person who committed the crime, and that’s pretty high burden. That means all other reasonable doubt. Means all other doubt. There’s no other reasonable doubt. There’s no other reasonable theory that you could be innocent.

Jackie Critzer 2:34
Right.

Scott Cardani 2:35
So, but when people get tunnel vision, reasonable doubt seems to kind of, they just stop asking the questions, well, what if it was Mary who actually did it?

Jackie Critzer 2:45
You know, I think they stopped asking questions that that would lead to a different conclusion. Was it an accident? Was, you know, did this person fall off the ladder? And, you know, we, we are in a community, community, in a society where, oftentimes, I think, especially in a corporate situation, they’re really looking for this, this quote, unquote smoking gun that may not be the smoking gun, the person to take the blame. Maybe they’re being looked at for some sort of bias, or they’re being looked at for for some wrongdoing, and they’re looking to find to throw an aim as quickly as they can so that they can say it wasn’t us, it was this person. This is what happened, and and we’ve let them go, and they’re fired, and they have charges pending or whatever.

Scott Cardani 3:28
Yeah, we’re okay. For instance, say you’re in a situation like in a big national corporation where they have data, right? Sure, and the company has this data breach, you know, and all sudden, all these 1000s of people information got out on the web or whatever, and they’re like, Oh, we got to really quickly do an investigation. And they look at their cameras or whatever, and they see Jackie was the only person in the room at the time. And from there on, the narrative goes, it’s Jackie. We know it is. Now we just have to prove it. That’s how tunnel vision starts.

Jackie Critzer 4:04
Right.

Scott Cardani 4:04
And you know, the questions who should be asked? Well, there was anybody could add access, outside access. Was there anybody else who hacked Jackie stuff and got access? Or, you know, the 100 other questions that could be asked. But you know, because, like Jackie said, the corporation wants to close this down and clear their name. All we didn’t do it. It it was our employee, and we fired them. This sometimes happens so fast that nobody’s asking the questions that need to be asked to try to really get to the truth of what happened. And you know, like I said, I’m not blaming anybody. We just see it happen, and we think it’s very, very important to have counsel who understands these things happen. Because, as counsel for somebody, a criminal defendant, especially, you have to be able to say, maybe this was tunnel vision, and maybe I need to look at it. Did they ask? You know, did they ask Mary, if she did it versus John?

Jackie Critzer 4:56
Sure. Well, Scott, is there any way that any of. Somebody could say talk their way out of tunnel vision.

Scott Cardani 5:04
Well, let’s say it this way, if somebody believes something about you so heartily, it’s really usually hard, almost impossible, to convince them otherwise. You then usually you’re talking about it will usually just feed their belief. It’s really unbelievable. I always have criminals, people who are charged with criminal crime, excuse me. But who are think they’re smart enough to out think the system and can talk through it and think if they answer the questions just right, they’re gonna not be convicted, and normally their answers only hurt them. You know. And I’ll give you a prime example. I think it was James Dwayne who did that fifth a minute thing. It was really great. You’ve ever looked for something fun to watch? Was a great one. But the bottom line is, say you had an alibi, and you think you’re going to get out because you had your alibi. And you say, Well, is it my sister Diane’s? When that happened? Okay, please say, okay, they go to your sister Diane’s. Yeah, he was here, but he was only here for an hour, right? And then the cop said, I’ll see you lied. You lied and told the whole story. You didn’t lie. You just didn’t you thought you were Diane’s. You thought you were there a couple hours. Maybe you didn’t have your timing, right? It was seven months ago, right? You knew you were a sister’s house. You don’t know how long you were there, but my point is, all of a sudden, everything you’re trying to justify doesn’t help you. It actually hurts you, and then you’re down a road even further.

Jackie Critzer 6:23
And even when you didn’t do anything wrong, you didn’t do the thing you’re being accused of. But there is no getting out no matter how much you talk, no matter how much you say, or how much you explain your position or explain all the pieces and parts you’re stuck in the tunnel vision, and you’re not going to get out easily. I mean, we have, if you all know, I listen to Dateline, I watch Dateline, but I listen to it in the car a lot. And there are cases where you can hear the detective say, Yeah, I didn’t do that very well. I sort of flubbed up this case because I was sure that the information we had was the good information, and that this person either was the guilty person or was not the guilty person right, where an innocent person is found guilty wrongly and in a court of law, and then it takes years for the convictions to be overturned, or you get you get the opposite too, where they don’t go looking for the right person. And these cold cases are left open for for years and years, because this information is right under their nose, but they were so tunnel vision away from that person, which, I mean, if you’re the if you’re the accused… good for you. But if you are, if they’ve got the tunnel vision for you, and you are the innocent person you are in, you’re in some serious trouble. And you for sure, need counsel to figure out how to navigate that, and not just okay counsel, not just somebody who is just going to sort of check the boxes and fill in the circles you need, somebody who recognizes when the tunnel vision is happening and knows how to navigate it, because it’s going to take that much more work to get out of it.

Scott Cardani 7:55
And the other thing that happens with tunnel vision, we were talking about this earlier is this was what happens say Johnny gets accused of molesting Melissa, right? Whatever it is, okay. And somehow that gets out. He gets charged with molesting Melissa. And then we have this world of people out in the world, to hinterlands, social media, people and things, and they’ll get a hold of this, and they’ll start sending Can you believe this guy did this? And they feed into this so bad and they, you know, this whole principle in our judicial system where it’s better for 100 guilty people to go free than one innocent man to spend any time in jail. That’s what our system was premised on. Just goes out the window, and then all these people are like, Oh, he’s guilty. We should kill his family. We should kill his dog. We could kill his cat, stone Him in the temple. They have no information. Usually, they have no idea what really happened. They haven’t seen the police reports. They haven’t seen the facts. They haven’t seen anything. Maybe this was a situation where the lady made everything up, and we don’t know that. But my point is tunnel vision. That reinforces it. When this whole conglomerate of media and social media and everything start to point the finger and say, mentality, right? The mob mentality gets in there, and then you mean, you talk about, then you’re then the burden becomes so much higher, because now everybody believes, yeah, this is what happened. I can’t tell you how many times I talk to people outside of our profession, and we’ll be like, you know, I can’t believe that person did that. And I’ll say, Well, how do you know they did it? Sure. Well, they were charged.

Jackie Critzer 9:32
Right…

Scott Cardani 9:33
What does that have to do with anything? I mean…

Jackie Critzer 9:35
They lawyered up.

Scott Cardani 9:35
They lawyered up. Oh, yeah, because if you get a lawyer you’re guilty. No, that’s not the way the system works. The system works. The system works that you get a lawyer to defend yourself because you’re not smart enough. Let’s be really clear about that. You’re not smart enough to defend yourself. I think maybe…

Jackie Critzer 9:52
Most lawyers aren’t smart enough to defend you. That’s why picking a good one is important. Okay?

Scott Cardani 9:57
There’s millions and millions of people in the world, and I would say one in a million can actually do a good job defending themselves. Because you have to be able to get outside of yourself and think critically in a way that your brain just doesn’t work, because you see the world as you see it, and you got to see it as a different way, in a different perspective. So, you know, just because somebody lawyered up doesn’t mean they’re guilty. Just because there’s a petition it says, or indictment that says, Hey, John Doe is indicted for molesting Susie Doe…

Jackie Critzer 10:31
Or Killing, or fill in the blank.

Scott Cardani 10:30
Yeah, whatever. And I’m just always amazed how many people go well it they wouldn’t charge him if it wasn’t. You know, how many people we get off every year who didn’t actually do it. It’s not that they got out about, you know, everything. It was a technicality. They actually didn’t, I’m just saying the evidence wasn’t there.

Jackie Critzer 10:33
Right.

Scott Cardani 10:36
They didn’t have the evidence to prove the case. So it wasn’t that we lawyered up and manipulated the system. The fact of whatever was, they charged the wrong person. And that happens all the time, and I’m not saying people do it on purpose. There’s no malice there. They believe they have the right person. That’s what tunnel vision is about. You believe you’re really believing that that’s what happened, and you had the right person and all those things. So be careful when you’re out there and you see this social media thing, Buzz start going for somebody, and they’re going after this guy, saying, Oh, he did it, he did it, he did it. Everybody jumps on that should be your first indication that maybe not.

Jackie Critzer 11:30
Careful what the group think leads you to believe.

Scott Cardani 11:32
Yeah it is group thinking, you know, and it’s hard in our society, but we really have to me right now is one of the most critical times in our society. We have to start peeling that back and say, Hey, you say, hey, let’s wait and see what the facts say. Let’s wait and see what really happens here. And sometimes you and the world outside of the courtroom never know exactly what the facts were. You may never hear exactly what went on. You may never hear the backroom deal where the attorney and the prosecutor had frank conversation. Realized there’s pieces of the point pie missing. We can’t make a pie here. We don’t have enough rhubarb to make a rhubarb pie. So you know, that’s the things that go on. And sometimes you’ll never know that, and you’ll walk through your life believing that this person did it, and maybe they just never did. And again, there’s plenty of people who do it, and there’s plenty of people guilty. We’re not at all going down that road, but it takes very experienced investigation and staying away from the group think in this thing we call tunnel vision, and asking people to ask questions, sometimes it’s during the investigation stage, you can throw out something to the investigators. Had you considered this? Have you considered that? You know? And it’s interesting, man, it can really be a big deal. It can really change the course of our history. Quite frankly, when we do that, because I’ve watched it over the years. I’ve watched people, you know, I think a good one is the Duke Lacrosse.

Jackie Critzer 12:56
OOOOhhhhhhhh…..

Scott Cardani 12:57
Think about that. If you don’t know the story, go back and read the papers way back. What was it? 10 years ago, a bunch of Duke lacrosse players was accused of committing rape or things, some kind of sexual assault. I can’t remember exactly it was, but I think it was rape, and they got excoriated the media. Everybody said they did it. These are bad kids, blah, blah, blah, went on and on and on they were the clock, decrying their innocence. The whole time they they got kicked out of school. All these things happened. Everybody in the world was saying, Oh yeah, that happened. And then, I mean, just recently, the lady who made the accusations said it never happened. You know, she lied about, you know, here’s some kids who lost so much.

Jackie Critzer 13:40
Well, they lost time number one, right? They want that’s that’s time you’re not going to get back. But my gracious.

Scott Cardani 13:46
Imagine being the person who was prosecuting them on social media, so to speak. You know, they were saying, No, you’re guilty.

Jackie Critzer 13:52
Sure.

Scott Cardani 13:52
Sending the death threats to their family or the accusation of their family. And here’s the study comes out. Oh, that never happened. You know, you got to be smart about I don’t want to be that person. I don’t want to be the person who accuses somebody you didn’t do it,

Jackie Critzer 14:06
Sure, but there was last week, I was listening to one of the podcast versions of one of the dateline stories, and the detective….

Scott Cardani 14:15
You like Dateline.. HaHaHa… excuse me.

Jackie Critzer 14:16
Well, this is important. The detective had determined that the that the husband had killed the wife, they found her dead. At first, it was ruled a suicide, and the detective in the family said, no, no, no, no, there’s no way. There’s no way she would have committed suicide. There is no way. And here’s the laundry risk list of reasons why. And although one of the analysts on the on the episode, talked about the defense attorney really doing a very bad job.

Scott Cardani 14:43
Yeah.

Jackie Critzer 14:44
Very bad job. Very bare minimum. Did say in the closing, closing argument, by the way, if all they needed was the gun shot residue test on him that the investigators and detectives had. The husband’s robe that he was supposedly wearing this particular night for months and months and months, where’s the GSR test? And 11 years later, they were able to go back and find that they had sent off for the GSR and that there wasn’t any on his robe. It was exculpatory information which the prosecution’s required to provide to the defense required. It’s not even that we have to ask for it. They’re required to provide it, but they said they didn’t get it. The detective says, well, he never got it back. And the analyst said, That’s not possible. There’s no way he sent off for that test. And then just never got it back. They buried it, and they buried it deep. And the second set of lawyers who were going through this basically Innocence Project were the ones who who demanded, and they did some really cool so they went into the evidence locker and in the cases, and she had to take pictures of every single thing that was in the file. And she found a piece. And it was early on in her her reviewing the file, she found that it was there. She kept going. She had to act like she was still looking and made all these demands, but, but 11 years this man spent in prison wrongly convicted because they had tunnel vision and because they didn’t reveal all the evidence that would have showed that he didn’t have any involvement in her death.

Scott Cardani 16:18
And people think in those kind of cases like, well, we know he did it, so we don’t. We shouldn’t give that information, because that may, that may skew a jury, and they may not find him guilty. We know he’s guilty. That’s how it works. Man, that’s it’s crazy. You think it doesn’t happen? And just say he did have gun shot residue? Well, was he shooting earlier in the day? You know, did he have? You know, there’s just so many things that can happen, but it’s not definitive, but so often, and again, our couch people, what are they? Armchair quarterback? I don’t know what it’s called in a criminal case, but I have so many people, these judges out there, who don’t actually have a position or a robe but they make these great decisions about No, they’re absolutely guilty, because this would have never happened. But you know, when you get into, when you get into this work, there’s so many elements to it. There’s so many things you have to look at, and you have to believe, as a defense counsel, almost, that they have tunnel vision.

Jackie Critzer 17:12
Correct.

Scott Cardani 17:12
You have to believe that that’s how this got there, so you can unwind it. And it may turn out to be, like I said, it may turn out the facts all line up. But if you don’t try to unpack that tunnel vision and start from that person, from that perspective, then you you’re at a disadvantage from the get go, you know. And so many people won’t take on cases and everything, because they hear all this stuff, bad stuff. And, you know, obviously they’re guilty. They were a horrible husband, therefore they were definitely a rapist, you know, kind of thing, and…

Jackie Critzer 17:38
Or they’re accused, so there must be sufficient evidence. No, no.

Scott Cardani 17:41
So anyways, that’s what we wanted to talk about today. We just think these things are really important for you to educate yourself and even educate your community. Because I think we’re I think social media has made this tunnel vision thing much worse since I’ve been in practice. But again, I’m not faulting social media, but I’m just saying we need to be careful. We need to understand it.

Jackie Critzer 18:01
And when you’re the subject of the tunnel vision, you have steps to take. First of all, do your homework, find a good attorney, a good one, and it’s going to be expensive, but to save your life, you’re going to need good help to unpack that, just like Scott was saying. And also be careful when you fall trapped, to the social media or to the the trial of public opinion, where there’s just not sufficient information to support the public lynching, if you will, of the people who are or the persons who’s been named as the the criminal defendant in a particular case, you just have to be careful and Look out for corporations or investigators or prosecutors who are looking for a scapegoat.

Scott Cardani 18:44
Can I say one more thing real quick? I just, it just dawned on me, Craig Cooley is one of the premier defense attorneys. I don’t know the United States, but I know in Virginia. So anyways, Craig Cooley did the the Beltway Shooting Melville, and one of the things they got tunnel vision on is this kid did it, and he should have the death penalty and all stuff. But one of the things they focused on was the fact that the kid was had known to be killing cats, I think it was, and Craig can correct me, and but I’m pretty sure it was cats. And so, you know, he was an animal killer from youth, you know, all this kind of stuff. And what Craig did to break that tunnel vision is he actually started to investigate it, and found out that where he grew up in the island that he grew up on, cats were almost like rodents, and they they were very much bad animals, and that people did kill them regularly, and it was part of the culture, and it was different than in America, where cats are treasured pets, you know, and stuff like that. So I’m just saying those are the things that happen. And if you don’t have a good attorney to unpack that and try to figure that out, why, you know he killed he did this as a kid, therefore he’s this person now.

Jackie Critzer 19:50
Right.

Scott Cardani 19:50
So anyways, I just thought that was a really good thing that I remember very well.

Jackie Critzer 19:50
Oh and he was ultimately convicted.

Scott Cardani 19:50
He was ultimately convicted, he got out of the death penalty because it the. Death. And they didn’t prove that he was just a psycho from birth, you know, and broken from birth, and he was able to unpack some of these things and showed more of a grooming behavior than it really was.

Jackie Critzer 20:10
That’s pretty big difference between the death penalty and life in prison, yeah, because of the work that he did. So.

Scott Cardani 20:15
Anyways – you know. And again, he was, you know, that when you hear the whole story, you know, we all thought this kid should rot and all stuff and go, you know, no problem with the death penalty. He did horrible things. But then when you see how he was groomed, and how Craig proved that grooming, again, the tunnel vision, didn’t fit the narrative. In unpacking that was so important in a case like this, not that he’s not guilty, not that he doesn’t have responsibility and nothing, but it’s not the same as the tunnel vision. It’s not the same as the narrative we call it nowadays.

Jackie Critzer 20:43
Well, we would love your feedback. If you have questions, comments or topics you want to hear us cover, please reach out to [email protected] , and check us out. We look forward to hearing from you.

Scott Cardani 20:57
Remember we cover Chesterfield, Richmond, Henrico, and all the surrounding areas.

Jackie Critzer 21:00
From the beach to the Blue Ridge.

Scott Cardani 21:02
Thank you very much. Have a good day.

What To Do When… Outro 21:04

We hope you’ve enjoyed this episode of What To Do When… For more episodes, be sure to subscribe to our podcast and we encourage you to check archives to listen to previous topics. Tune in next week for a new episode and some fresh perspective from Critzer Cardani.

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