05-02-03

A court appearance for a traffic citation turned into a more serious problem for a Carlsbad teen when he dropped a marijuana joint in the courtroom.

Robin Loftin, 18, was charged with contempt of court and sentenced to two days in jail for taking the illegal substance into Judge Walter Parr's courtroom at magistrate court.

According to court records, Loftin was in court Tuesday on charges of driving with a suspended driver's license and failure to renew his vehicle registration.

After the judge entered the courtroom, Loftin removed the hat he was wearing and the marijuana joint fell from the hat onto the floor.

Parr immediately cited Loftin for contempt of court and ordered him to the Eddy County Detention Center.

The judge deferred the sentences on the traffic citations on the condition Loftin obeys all laws, clears his license and renews his vehicle registration.

This wasn't Loftin's first run in with the law due to drugs. Court records show Loftin pleaded no contest in March to possession of drug paraphernalia after an Eddy County sheriff's deputy watched him hide a marijuana pipe inside a cabinet during a party.

According to the complaint, Loftin admitted the pipe was his and said he had used it to smoke marijuana before the deputies arrived. He was sentenced to 10 days in jail for the crime.

Drunk Driver Caught after Urinating on Police Car

A drunk driver has been arrested in Munich after he stopped his vehicle, walked over to a police car and urinated on it.

He was charged after failing a breath test and then fined the equivalent of £200.

Officers say he stepped out of his car, walked towards the two officers seated inside the vehicle and undid his trousers.

He was arrested on the spot and taken to a nearby police station.

Police say he now faces a driving ban for up to a month. His drunk driving fine included a £22 charge for urinating on police property.

©2003 Dumb Crooks
Www.dumbcrooks.com
Used with permission

Safety at Work

You've just got to ask..."What were these people thinking?"

Legal Issues

VIOLATION OF ‘KNOCK AND ANNOUNCE’ RULE REQUIRES SUPPRESSION.

During the execution of a search warrant for drugs, officers kicked open a back door to the residence to be searched and entered without first knocking and announcing their purpose. The defendant, who was convicted on the basis of evidence obtained during the search, appealed his conviction on the grounds that the officers violated the Fourth Amendment by failing to “knock and announce.”

The Court of Appeals agreed and reversed the conviction. The State moved for a rehearing by the Court of Appeals, arguing that the search did not violate the U.S. Supreme Court’s prohibition against blanket no-knock searches in all felony drug cases because exigent circumstances existed.

Alternatively, the State urged the appellate court to hold that exclusion was not required in any event because the failure to knock and announce did not lead to the discovery of evidence.

Holding: In Richards v. Wisconsin, 520 U.S. 385, the U.S. Supreme Court held that a state may not adopt a blanket exception to the “knock and announce” rule of the Fourth Amendment, even in drug cases. An unannounced entry may be reasonable in some circumstances, but each case must be decided on its own merit.

The State argued in this case that there was reason to believe the defendant was armed and dangerous, and therefore endangered the safety of the officers who entered the residence. “The mere assumption that those in possession of controlled substances are normally also in possession of firearms in insufficient as a matter of law to relieve the authorities of their historical duty to knock-and-announce their presence.”

No specific facts were alleged in this case to justify the belief that the defendant was armed and dangerous. The State relied instead on “generalities and stereotypes of drug dealers in the abstract.”

It also was argued that evidence was likely to be destroyed if the officers had been forced to announce themselves. Mere suspicion that a suspect may destroy drugs is insufficient to create an exigency justifying an unannounced entry.

“To avail themselves of this exception to the knock-and-announce rule, officers must reasonably conclude that the resident has resolved to dispose of the evidence in the event of police intrusion.” Officer should have “at least some specific facts’ to justify these fears.

The defendant was not seen destroying evidence, and the officers did not see any specific acts suggesting that he was about to destroy the drugs. There were no reports that the defendant had destroyed or tried to destroy drugs in the past.

“The mere fact that drugs are involved does not give the police probable cause to believe that evidence will be destroyed so as to justify an unannounced entry.” Finding that an exigency exists solely because drugs easily could be destroyed would effectively authorize an unannounced entry in every drug case.

Although the Supreme Court has not decided the issue, exclusion is an appropriate remedy in cases of violation of the knock-and-announce rule. Unlawful execution of a search warrant precludes reliance on that warrant as an independent source of the drugs.
“If the execution of warrant was illegal, the State cannot invoke that very warrant as an independent source of the illegal entry.”

The unlawful execution of the warrant in this case required the trial court to grant the defendant’s motion to suppress. Its failure to do so required reversal.

COMMENT: This significant opinion applies the exclusionary rule of the Fourth Amendment to a violation of the knock-and-announce rule. Finding that “blanket” exceptions to the requirement in drug cases would undermine the rule completely, the court required specific facts establishing exigency, apart from the fact that the case involved drugs. Texas also has a knock-and-announce rule (Articles 15.25 and 15.26 of the Code of Criminal Procedure), and an independent exclusionary rule (Article 38.23), neither of which was invoked by the defendant in this case. Price v. State, No. 14-01-01028 (Tex. App. – Houston, 11-27-02).

Go Navy!

The U.S.S. Constitution (Old Ironsides) as a combat vessel carried 48,600 gallons of fresh water for her crew of 475 officers and men. This was sufficient to last six months of sustained operations at sea. She carried no evaporators (i.e. fresh water distillers!).

However, let it be noted that according to her log, "On July 27, 1798, the U.S.S. Constitution sailed from Boston with a full complement of 475 officers and men, 48,600 gallons of fresh water, 7,400 cannon shot, 11,600 pounds of black powder and 79,400 gallons of rum.

Her mission: "To destroy and harass English shipping."

Making Jamaica on 6 October, she took on 826 pounds of flour and 68,300 gallons of rum.

Then she headed for the Azores, arriving there 12 November. She provisioned with 550 pounds of beef and 64,300 gallons of Portuguese wine.

On 18 November, she set sail for England. In the ensuing days she defeated five British men-of-war and captured and scuttled 12 English merchantmen, salvaging only the rum aboard each.

By 26 January, her powder and shot were exhausted. Nevertheless, although unarmed she made a night raid up the Firth of Clyde in Scotland. Her landing party captured a whisky distillery and transferred 40,000 gallons of single malt Scotch aboard by dawn.

Then she headed home. The U.S.S. Constitution arrived in Boston on 20 February 1799, with no cannon shot, no food, no powder, no rum, no wine, no whisky and 38,600 gallons of stagnant water.

A Computer Poem for Users over 40 Years Old

A Computer was something on TV, From a Science Fiction show of note. A Window was something you hated to clean, And Ram was the father of a goat.

Meg was the name of my girlfriend, And Gig was a job for the nights. Now they all mean different things, And that really Mega Bytes!

An Application was for employment, A Program was a TV show. A Cursor used profanity, A Keyboard was a piano.

A Memory was something that you lost with age, A CD was a bank account. And if you had a 3-inch floppy, You hoped nobody found out.

Compress was something you did to the garbage, Not something you did to a file. And if you Unzipped anything in public, You'd be in jail for a while.

Log on was adding wood to the fire, Hard drive was a long trip on the road. A Mouse pad was where a mouse lived, And a Backup happened to your commode.

Cut you did with a pocket knife, Paste you did with glue. A Web was a spider's home, And a Virus was the flu.

I guess I'll stick to my pad and paper, And the Memory in my head. I hear nobody's been killed in a Computer crash, But when it happens they wish they were dead!

A small boy invaded the lingerie section of a large department store and shyly presented his problem to a woman clerk in the department.

“I want to buy a slip for my Mom for Mother’s Day,” he said, “But I don’t know what size she wears.”

“Is she tall or short, fat or skinny?” asked the clerk.

“She’s just perfect,” beamed the small boy. So the clerk wrapped up a size 34 for him

Two days later, Mom came to the store by herself and changed the slip to a size 52.

Someone Once Said…

People are what their mother’s make them - Ralph Waldo Emerson

All that I am or hope to be I owe to my angel mother. – Abraham Lincoln

A London editor submitted to Winston Churchill for his approval a list of all those who had been his teachers. Churchill returned the list with one comment: “You have omitted to mention the greatest of my teachers – my mother.”