08-08-03

Police in Fort Worth say a bank robber made a bad career move. Detectives say the man who held up a Wells Fargo Bank branch wrote his holdup note on the back of his resume.

Police say he had tried to hide the personal information by taping black construction paper over it. But he apparently forgot to retrieve the note and take it with him after slipping it to a teller. Police just peeled off the tape.

A tip led police to a Fort Worth motel, where the suspect was arrested.

Ricky Beale rode in the back of a stretch limousine to rob a Bank of America of $5,000, San Francisco police say, only to earn a free ride to jail later Thursday.

Beale, 31, a personal trainer, hired the limo to take him from his studio on Van Ness Avenue to San Francisco International Airport, said Inspector Dan Gardner of the robbery detail. Beale told the driver to stop at his girlfriend's place.

Instead of visiting his girlfriend, however, Beale went to the Bank of America branch at 3701 Balboa St., police said, and allegedly robbed two tellers after simulating having a handgun.

A witness spotted Beale getting into the limo. Police were alerted and pulled the car over at 20th Ave. and Lincoln Way at 11:20 a.m.

"It's a stretch limousine -- not exactly the most discreet getaway vehicle, " Gardner said.

The driver, he added, "got stiffed."

"It's just one of those things," said the driver, Cornelius Weekley, owner of My Way Limo.

He said he had driven for Beale about eight times, usually for bar-hopping and such occasions as New Year's Eve.

"But that was in the evening, when the banks are closed," Weekley said.

"I thought he was pretty successful myself, but you never know," he said. "It was a big surprise."

Watch the Sky

Watch the Sky!

Never again in your lifetime will the Red Planet be so spectacular! This month and next month the Earth is catching up with Mars, an encounter that will culminate in the closest approach between the two planets in recorded history. The next time Mars may come this close is in 2287. Due to the way Jupiter's gravity tugs on Mars and perturbs its orbit, astronomers can only be certain that Mars has not come this close to Earth in the last 5,000 years but it may be as long as 60,000 years.

The encounter will culminate on August 27th when Mars comes to within 34,649,589 miles and will be (next to the moon) the brightest object in the night sky. It will attain a magnitude of -2.9 and will appear 25.11 arc seconds wide. At a modest 75-power magnification Mars will look as large as the full moon to the naked eye. Mars will be easy to spot.

At the beginning of August, Mars will rise in the east at 10 p.m. and reach its azimuth at about 3 a.m. By the end of August when the two planets are closest, Mars will rise at nightfall and reach its highest point in the sky at 12:30 a.m. That's pretty convenient when it comes to seeing something that no human has seen in recorded history. So mark your calendar at the beginning of August to see Mars as it grows progressively brighter and brighter throughout the month. Share with your children and grandchildren. No one alive today will ever see this again.

Legal Issues - Search and Seizure

HOSPITAL IS “SUSPICIOUS PLACE” JUSTIFYING A WARRANTLESS ARREST.

The defendant was involved in a one-car accident on New Year’s Eve. He was taken to a hospital before the police arrived on the accident scene.

When the responding officer investigated the scene, he discovered that the defendant’s vehicle had left the road and landed upside down. The officer then went to the hospital to talk with the defendant about the accident.

The defendant told the officer that he had been “partying in Austin for New Year’s Eve and was attempting to drive back to Houston.” He admitted that he had been drinking, and he also had slurred speech, red glassy eyes, and a strong smell of an alcoholic beverage.

Based on his suspicion that the defendant had been driving while intoxicated, the officer read the defendant Miranda warnings and arrested him for DWI. The defendant consented to a blood test.

The defendant later moved to suppress the results of that blood test on the grounds that they were obtained as a result of an illegal warrantless arrest. Finding that the officer had probable cause to believe the defendant had committed an offense that was a breach of the peace, the trial court overruled the defendant’s suppression motion.

He was found guilty and appealed. The defendant’s appeal argued that a hospital is not a “suspicious place” as required for a warrantless arrest, and that no other warrant exception applied.

Holding: Article 14.03(a)(1) of the Code of Criminal Procedure provides that a peace officer may arrest without a warrant “persons found in suspicious places and under circumstances which reasonably show that such persons have been guilty of some...breach of the peace…”

The Fourth Amendment does not always require a warrant in order to make an arrest, but “Texas law imposes a general requirement – subject to exception – that arrests be made pursuant to arrest warrants.” The statutory arrest warrant exceptions that exist in Texas law generally are found in “the necessity for prompt action in order to arrest or detain the offender so as to prevent his escape.”

The term “suspicious places” has no statutory definition, and its meaning is unclear from the legislative history of this 1856 statute. In this case, the facts of the accident, and the observation of the defendant at the hospital led the officer to conclude that the defendant at the hospital had been driving while intoxicated.

The issue raised by the appeal, however, was whether the hospital was a “suspicious place” justifying a warrantless arrest, even if probable cause did exist. Prior cases have held that “few, if any, places are suspicious in and of themselves. Rather, additional facts available to an officer plus reasonable inferences from those facts in relation to a particular place may arouse justifiable suspicion.”

The officer in this case learned that the driver had been taken to the hospital, information which would tend to make a hospital a suspicious place in which to seek the driver who was suspected of causing the accident.”

At the hospital, the officer learned additional facts which led him to conclude that the driver had been drinking and driving. “Those facts in relation to the hospital make the hospital a “suspicious place.” Those same facts also provided probable cause to believe that the [defendant] had been drinking and driving.”

While several factors have been used in prior cases to determine that a place is “suspicious.” only one factor seems to be constant throughout the case law.” The “time frame” between the occurrence of the crime and finding the suspect in a suspicious place is “short.” The time between the crime and the apprehension of the suspect in a suspicious place is an important factor.”

The arresting officer had probable cause to believe the defendant had committed the offense of DWI, and, under a totality of circumstances approach, the hospital was sufficiently shown to be a suspicious place to justify the warrantless arrest.

COMMENT: The cases interpreting this statute are, at least, confusing. This may stem from the fact that the statute originally appears to have been intended for quite a different purpose than it has today. The Court of Criminal Appeals announces in this decision that there is an arrest warrant requirement in Texas law, although it does not originate in the Texas Constitution. The Court neglects, though, to say where in the statutes this warrant requirement is found. The opinion of the Court then considers whether probable cause existed to believe that the defendant was DWI, and concludes that it did. What is not explained is how the “totality of circumstances” lead to the conclusion that the hospital was a “suspicious place,” other than a fleeting reference to the “time frame” of the arrest. If the Court means that any place a suspect is found shortly after the crime is committed is “suspicious,” then this warrant exception has been expanded to permit many more warrantless arrests than have been authorized in the past. Dyar v. State, No. 1794-01 Ct. of Crim. App. (4-23-03).

Wise County S.O. Administration

627-2705

627-2458

627-2046

Harold Denney 627-2880

Bo Wright 627-2481

ACO/Patrol 627-1740

Hoax Email May Be Worse for Business Than Viruses

By Keith Ferrell, TechWeb News
Anti-virus software maker Sophos pays equal attention to viruses and hoaxes in its monthly top 10 report issued Thursday.

They do no measurable damage. They don't carry malicious code or payloads, but the business price tag for e-mail hoaxes may be larger than that for outright viruses, the enterprise anti-virus software maker said.

“Hoax e-mails are a major headache for IT departments,” said Chris Belthoff, senior security analyst at Sophos. “They're more insidious; they prey upon weaknesses of the end-user; they panic employees over non-existent viruses.”

While corporate costs of dealing with hoax-mail remain unquantified, the problem isn't going away. And some old hoaxes are coming back.

“The trend is up over last year," Belthoff said, "both for viruses and hoaxes. We showed a 17 percent or so increase in number for the first six months of the year, and that's continued through July."

Sophos's latest top 10 viruses and hoaxes list showed a chain mail promise of a share in Bill Gates's wealth to all who forwarded it taking top honors as July's most frequently forwarded hoax on enterprise mail systems.

The difference between virus incidents and hoax reports illuminates the problem hoax mail presents to IT departments.

“Most companies by now have deployed anti-virus software and update it regularly,” Belthoff said. “Hoaxes get through, get forwarded throughout the system."

From the Chaplain

One way to help our neighbors in need in Wise County is through the United Way Campaign. Pick up a pledge form at the Sheriff’s Office!