Exception needed for skipping Private users

[stansburymaterial]

Whenever I run across a private Twitter user I receive the following error which also stops the script from running further:

error: Twitter sent status 403 for URL: 1.1/friendships/create.json using parameters: (follow=False&oauth_consumer_key=u8l2sK4SZw9wmn9oOkXt9mUHq&oauth_nonce=15650873064108859532&oauth_signature_method=HMAC-SHA1&oauth_timestamp=1443029547&oauth_token=2903130078-SfJZ1BoBnwPhhfzuOF0GWzqS5E8bQQUTnpY6SaM&oauth_version=1.0&user_id=886451221&oauth_signature=U6%2BZ%2BQVxhxUv0Cugp7Nm4ZKuNpQ%3D)
details: {u'errors': [{u'message': u"You've already requested to follow ohboyzx3.", u'code': 160}]}

Is there a way to identify private users and make an exception that prevents me from trying to follow them?