03-09-01

Dumb Crooks^TM

Taps

It all began in 1862 during the Civil War, when Union Army Captain Robert Ellicombe was with his men near Harrison's Landing in Virginia.

The Confederate Army was on the other side of the narrow strip of land. During the night, Captain Ellicombe heard the moan of a soldier who lay mortally wounded on the field.

Not knowing if it was a Union or Confederate soldier, the captain decided to risk his life and bring the stricken man back for medical attention.

Crawling on his stomach through the gunfire, the captain reached the stricken soldier and began pulling him toward his encampment. When the captain finally reached his own lines, he discovered it was actually a Confederate soldier, but the soldier was dead. The captain lit a lantern.

Suddenly, he caught his breath and went numb with shock. In the dim light, he saw the face of the soldier. It was his son. The boy had been studying music in the South when the war broke out. Without telling his father, he enlisted in the Confederate Army.

The following morning, heartbroken, the father asked permission of his superiors to give his son a full military burial despite his enemy status. His request was partially granted.

The captain had asked if he could have a group of Army band members play a funeral dirge for the son at the funeral. That request was turned down since the soldier was a Confederate. Out of respect for the father, they did say they could give him only one musician. The captain chose a bugler. He asked the bugle to play a series of musical notes he had found on a piece of paper in the pocket of his dead son's uniform. This wish was granted.

This music was the haunting melody we now know as Taps" that is used at all military funerals.

These are the words to TAPS":

Legal Issues - Confession

An officer who saw the defendant’s truck passing cars and weaving in and out of lanes on an interstate highway, attempted to stop the defendant. Despite the officer’s flashing lights, the driver did not stop.

After the officer turned on his siren, the defendant exited the highway, turned into a mobile home park, and stopped in front of a trailer. Because the defendant refused to get out of his truck when the officer ordered him to do so, the officer put the defendant on the ground and handcuffed him.

The defendant smelled of alcohol, and his eyes were bloodshot and glassy, and his pupils were dilated. The man swayed and staggered, and he was argumentative and combative.

Another officer arrived shortly after the defendant was stopped, and he asked the defendant if he had been drinking. The defendant had not been warned of his Miranda rights. In response to the officer’s question, the defendant admitted he had consumed six beers.

The defendant subsequently was charged with DWI. He moved to suppress the statements he made while in custody on the grounds that he had been in custody, and that he was not given Miranda warnings prior to being questioned.

Holding: “Custodial interrogation” is “questioning initiated by law enforcement officers after a person has been taken into custody or otherwise deprived of his freedom of action in any significant way.”

No statement that is the result of custodial interrogation may be used in the State’s case unless adequate measures are used to assure that the defendant’s right against self-incrimination is protected. The measure usually required is informing the suspect of his or her “rights,” as set forth in Miranda v. Arizona.

Ordinarily, persons who are temporarily detained on a traffic stop are not “in custody” for purposes of the Miranda rule. If, however, a motorist who has been stopped for a traffic violation is treated like someone “in custody,” Miranda warnings are required prior to any questioning.

Under the circumstances of this stop, including the handcuffing of the defendant while he was being held on the ground, the driver was in custody when he was asked if he had been drinking. The trial court should not have admitted the defendant’s answer to that question because he had not been warned in accordance with Miranda prior to the questioning.

Handcuffing does not necessarily convert a temporary detention into an arrest. The relevant question, though, is not whether the defendant was under arrest, but whether a reasonable person ”would have felt that he or she was not at liberty to terminate the interrogation and leave.”

The arresting officer testified in this case that the defendant was swerving in and out of traffic and speeding, and that he smelled of alcohol, had bloodshot eyes, and swayed when he walked. Both officers believed the defendant was intoxicated, an opinion supported by his combativeness, refusal to stop, and performance on field sobriety tests.

During closing argument, the prosecutor emphasized the defendant’s statement more than any of the other evidence of intoxication. It cannot be said beyond a reasonable doubt, therefore, that the defendant’s statement in response to custodial interrogation was harmless.

Since it was constitutional error for the trial court to admit the defendant’s answer to custodial interrogation when he had not been given Miranda warnings, and since that error was not harmless beyond a reasonable doubt, the defendant’s DWI conviction was reversed.

COMMENT: This case pulls together several important points regarding roadside questioning during a traffic stop. Such stops usually are treated, at least initially, as temporary detentions (“Terry stops”) unless and until the circumstances take on the look and feel of a custodial arrest. If the stop never becomes anything more, officers may ask questions and responses usually are admissible even though Miranda warnings are not given. As in this case, though, a temporary detention may become an arrest because of the presence of any one or more factors. If an officer says, “You are under arrest,” that is powerful evidence that the traffic stop is no longer a mere detention. Similarly, if the motorist is handcuffed or otherwise treated more like an arrestee than as someone who will be issued a citation and released, courts may consider the stop to be an arrest. What the officer thought also is a factor, but not the controlling factor if everything else looks like an arrest. More important than what an officer thinks is going on, is what a reasonable person in the defendant’s place would have thought.

Alford v. State, 22 S.W.3d 669 (Tex. App.-Fort Worth 2000).

From the Chaplain

After Fred Astaire’s first screen test, the memo from the testing director, dated 1933, said “Can’t act! Slightly bald! Can dance a little!” Astaire kept that memo over the fireplace in his Beverly Hills home.

Walt Disney was fired by a newspaper editor for lack of ideas. Walt also went bankrupt several times before he built Disneyland.

Thomas Edison’s teachers said he was too stupid to learn anything.

Louis Pasteur was only a mediocre pupil in undergraduate studies and ranked 15^th out of 22 in chemistry.

F. W. Woolworth’s employees at the dry goods store said he had not enough sense to wait upon customers.

Henry Ford failed and went broke five times before he finally succeeded.

Babe Ruth, considered by sports historians to be the greatest athlete of all time and famous for setting the home run record, also holds the record for strikeouts.

I am a dynamic figure, often seen scaling walls and crushing ice. I have been known to remodel train stations on my lunch breaks, making them more efficient in the area of heat retention. I translate ethnic slurs for Cuban refugees, I write award-winning operas, I manage time efficiently.

Occasionally, I tread water for three days in a row. I woo women with my sensuous and godlike trombone playing, I can pilot bicycles up severe inclines with unflagging speed, and I cook Thirty-Minute Brownies in twenty minutes. I am an expert in stucco, a veteran in love, and an outlaw in Peru.

Using only a hoe and a large glass of water, I once single-handedly defended a small village in the Amazon Basin from a horde of ferocious army ants. I play bluegrass cello, I was scouted by the Mets, I am the subject of numerous documentaries. When I'm bored, I build large suspension bridges in my yard. I enjoy urban hang gliding. On Wednesdays, after school, I repair electrical appliances free of charge.

I am an abstract artist, a concrete analyst, and a ruthless bookie. Critics worldwide swoon over my original line of corduroy evening wear. I don't perspire. I am a private citizen, yet I receive fan mail. I have been caller number nine and have won the weekend passes. Last summer I toured New Jersey with a traveling centrifugal-force demonstration. I bat 400.

My deft floral arrangements have earned me fame in international botany circles. Children trust me. I can hurl tennis rackets at small moving objects with deadly accuracy. I once read Paradise Lost, Moby Dick, and David Copperfield in one day and still had time to refurbish an entire dining room that evening. I know the exact location of every food item in the supermarket. I have performed several covert operations with the CIA.

I sleep once a week; when I do sleep, I sleep in a chair. While on vacation in Canada, I successfully negotiated with a group of terrorists who had seized a small bakery. I balance, I weave, I dodge, I frolic, and my bills are all paid.

On weekends, to let off steam, I participate in full-contact origami. Years ago I discovered the meaning of life but forgot to write it down. I have made extraordinary four course meals using only a mouli and a toaster oven. I breed prize-winning clams. I have won bullfights in San Juan, cliff-diving competitions in Sri Lanka, and spelling bees at the Kremlin.

I have played Hamlet, I have performed open-heart surgery, and I have spoken with Elvis.

But I have not yet gone to college.