The Bath County News.Outlook
Thursday, December 11,2003
:: Automobile Searches
;i The Kentucky Court of Appeals recently issued a decision
',',which may somewhat curtail automobile searches by the
1
,pohce after an arrest.
t
,, Wflham Ramey, a convicted felon, was seen driving at a
',high rate of speed by two Louisville policemen. Rainey was
",followed and then seen parking his vehicle, exiting, and
!shouting loudly at nearby residents. By the time the officers
',reached him, Rainey was approximately 50 feet from his
:vehicle.
Rainey was unsteady on his feet, smelled strongly of alco-
',ihol, and was slurring his speech. Rainey admitted he had been
:idrinking, and had been kicked out of a bar. Rainey refused to
",take any field sobriety tests. Nevertheless, he was arrested for
,iDUI and reckless driving.
',' Following the arrest, the officers searched Rainey's car.
'.iThey found a handgun under the driver's seat. Rainey was
',later charged with possession of a firearm by a convicted
::felon.
., Ramey challenged the search of his vehicle, claiming it
Molated his 4th Amendment right to be free from unreason-
i:able searches. He asked that the gun be suppressed as evi-
dence. The police claimed the search was proper as one inci-
dent to an arrest.
The trial court rationalized that Rainey was not in immedi-
ate control of any potential evidence or contraband since he
'was 50 feet from his car at the time of his arrest. The trial
',court suppressed the gun as evidence and the Commonwealth
, appealed.
l The Court of Appeals started its analysis of the case with
'the proposition that the 4th Amendment generally requires a
search warrant for a valid search of property. An exception
has been recognized by the courts however for arrests. An
arresting officer may search the person arrested in order to
remove any weapons that the latter might seek to use in order
to resist arrest or to escape. This includes the search for evi-
dence on the arrestee's person to prevent its concealment or
destruction.
This exception has been applied to those areas within the
immediate control of the arrestee. Thus the "incident to
arrest" exception has been extended to a warrantless search of
an automobile made contemporaneously to the lawful arrest
of its occupant. The United States: Supreme Court has held,
"When a policeman has made a lawful custodial arrest of the
occupant of an automobile, he may, as a contemporaneous
incident of that arrest, search the passenger compartment of
that automobile."
In Rainey's case, the Court noted he was 50 feet from his
vehicle, and did not occupy it when the officers first encoun-
tered him. The Court concluded that the search incident to
arrest etoeption- was iicabl-,(£he omt,hdd. that.:in,,
order to apply the exception, the police mttst, firstnitiate,con-i
tact with the suspect while he is still within the confines of his
vehicle.
It will be interesting to see how this decision affects other
situations. For example, if a car is stopped and it occupants
are arrested and removed from the car, case law allows the
police to still search the vehicle even though once removed
they are not a danger to access weapons or contraband in the
x'ehicle. The Rainey case may cause courts to look again at
this policy. And what about the "smart" suspect who immedi-
ately gets out of his car when stopped by the police?
As Rosanne Rosannadanna used to say, "It's always some-
thing!
It is scary when you start making
the same noises as your
Thoughts on aging:
Don't think of it as hot flash-
es. Think of it as your inner
child, playing with matches.
Ever get the feeling your
stuff strutted Off without you?
Show some attitude. Strut
around and say "I've still got it
baby . . . even though nobody
wants to see it!
It's scary when you start
making the same noises as your
coffeemaker.
I can still do the same things
I once did, it just takes me too
long to do them and too long to
recover, so I have opted not to
do those things, in an effort to
conserve energy.
The things that used to bring
me such pleasure, are the very
things that now make mc n'er-
able, so I am reserving my ener-
gy for educational endeavors
like watching television (the
Discovery Channel), and cre-
ative avenues like naps where I
dream of great adventures from
the comfort and safety of my
recliner.
The best thing about aging is
that we find new ways to make
life easier, like getting the chil-
dren to mow and trim, wash the
cars, take out the trash, clean the
house, and help with the dishes
and the laundry.
Remember, don't let age get
you down because it's too hard
to get back up.
A drunken man walks into a
biker bar, sits down at the bar
and orders a drink.
Looking around, he sees three
again and says, "I made love to
your grandma and she was good.
The biker's buddies are start-
ing to get really mad, but the
biker still says nothing.
The drunk leans on the table
one more time and says, 'TII tell
you something else, boy, your
grandma liked it!"
At this point the biker stands
up, takes the drunk by the shoul-
ders, looks him square in the
eyes and says, "Grandpa, go
home. You're drunk!"
@KM@
Just when you thought stupidi-
ty had reached its lowest level,
the British have come up with a
reality-based show that even
boggles the keenest of minds.
The Peoples's Choice Awards
ma si ata comer table, honor peop!e. , .tl!e
Hc gets up, staggers to the world that are willing to try to
table, leans over, looks at the
biggest, meanest one in the face
and says, "I went by your grand-
ma's house today and I saw her
in the bathroom buck naked.
Man, she is one fine-looking
woman !"
The biker looks at him and
doesn't say a word. His buddies
are puzzled, because he is one
bad biker, and will fight at the
drop of a hat.
The drunk leans on the table
do the most bizzare of competi-
tive events, for the title.
Everything from racing a small
tricycle around a track in the
nude, to slinging hot dogs into
the window of a slow-moving
car, this program is the epitome
of ignorance. The irony is that
you have to watch it just to see
what the next nit-wit stunt will
be'.
If you haven't seenh, you. will
be surprised and shocked at the
level of lunacy. And if
the least bit weak of
then you might want to
room, when others view it.
No, it's not for children
will probably cause your
er-in-law to vapor-lock
were to watch it.
It does however, have
moments as you will be in t
disbelief that anyone
could produce a reality
such an idiotic premise.
I guess you really have
British to fully appreciate
comedic flavour.
Heck, I never really
stood Monty Python either.
' From the files of "RUSS METZ", 1919-1996
My Mind Is Made Up...Don't Confuse Me With The Facts
Through such books as "The Hucksters," "The Man In The Gray
- Flannel Suit" and the latest, "From Those Wonderful Folks Who
Gave Us Pearl Harbor," we get an insight on the whacky world of
big-time advertising.
And it's a world of some other kind. It is one of the few professions
where a fellow wearing beads and sandals can knock down 40 or 50
thousand big ones a year and be out of a job the next morning.
Caged up in the offices of advertising agencies in New York, some
' of the wildest weirdos in America, wallowing in a maze of secret for-
mulas, giant economy sizes and non-irrtafing filters spend their days
and nights seeking new keys to the buying public's pocketbooks.
For 15% of a client's advertising budget, these cats will come up
with such sparkling slogans as "Today the pits, tomorrow the wrin-
ldes," or "When you're second, you try harder," and by barraging the
public with them, make the catchy sayings household words.
"Les throw it on the floor and see if the cat eats it," means a trial
balloon is going out to the public. One genius extolled the merits of
a new soft drink with a send-off blurb saying, "it's a formula so secret
only the master bottler knows it." He went on to say that so closely-
guarded was the formula it was kept in a bank vault. No one except
the nastiest critic was going to point out that, in order to conform with
the Pure Food and Drug Act, that magic formula had to appear on
every bottle for everyone to read.
Some more of the beautiful jargon coming from those adorable
advertising apes goes like this:
"The client wants the type big and black, but keep the ad digni-
\\;
fled."
"Let's drive it onto the parkAng lot and see if we dent any fenders."
"Let's run it up the flagpole and see who salutes,"
"Let's test it to see if it's a mushroom or a toadstool."
"Kick it out into the weeds; it needs the grassroots touch."
"Let's get down on all fours and look at the problem from the
client's point of view."
An overexposure on the television commercials necessitates fre-
quent changes of advertising slogans today and this keeps those little
wheels grinding on Madison Avenue. "I don't care if a fellow comes
to me naked or riding a broom handle, if he can produce the ideas, I'll
hire him," one agency head said recently. And they come just that
way.
Advertising has a tremendous impact on the American public. It
keeps some of us eating. "Advertise,' warned famous showman ET.
Barnum, "or chances are the sheriff will do it for you."
And, for a final hot lick, pitch this one on the hot pipes: There are
26 mountains in Colorado higher than Pike's Peak. Name one of
them.
" RM --
The average reader probably doesn't notice it or could care less, but
there are different colors of newspapers. One newsprint salesman
claims he can tell what shade of newsprint a newspaper will order by
the background of the publisher.
If the publisher comes up from the editorial ranks, he usually wants
cream-colored sheets, good background for well-reasoned editorials,
he believes. But if the publisher was raised on the business side, he
will want a blue-white sheet, to give a sharp reproduction for the
advertiser.
I guess that makes some sense, but not much. I got my baptism of
ink on a newspaper owned by a one-legged fellow, who wasn't exact-
ly noted for his philanthropy. He bought the cheapest paper that
would go through the old press and ordered us to save all sheets wrin-
kled in the printing.
He sent the messed up ones out to his relatives. He used to say,
"Why should they complain. They're not paying for it anyway."
When you get down to it, I think the old boy had another reason.
Not only did he save the good papers for his paying customers, but
with relatives getting clobbered up copies every week, they could get
the impression the old man was on his last leg and not come around
to put the bite on him.
Your newspaper today is printed on good pulpwood, chopped
down by Canadian lumberjacks, who travel from tree to tree in
Cadillacs, and rolled up and delivered by men in union suits at five
times the price my old boss used to pay. At today's prices, the news-
paper owner doesn't have to worry much about the color of his sheet.
He is Convinced it has to be gold leaf.
--RM
"There is something boiling over on the stove."
It isn't often my wife is first to break off a conversation over the
telephone, but when her trick knee freezes or the talk gets a little
murky, she knows how to bow out gracefully.
I am a great listener, which may account for the reason
riage has survived so long, so I am not known for tact in shutting
a bore. I have found that hanging u15 the receiver gets the job
quicker than anything I could say.
Once I was visiting a friend when his phone rang.
ous after a while that my buddy had put his foot in it and had a
irate customer on the other end of the hollow wire. When the
"I'm sorry" failed to cool the caller, my friend waited for
the conversation and then quickly said: "I think I smell
he hung up.
My big nose hadn't picked up any telltale odor of smoke and I had"
n't heard the fire engine coming, so I must have looked puzzled.
"It's a little trick I sometimes use," he said, "to out the fire
the other end of the line. Later I call up the fellow
only a cigar butt in the wastebasket and, by that time, he has siltr
mered down and maybe he even feels a little relieved that he ha #
caused my place to go up in flames."
About one to a customer is all you can hope for with this
The only fellow I ever heard who got by with yelling "fire"
ly was John Wesley.
It is told of the great Methodist thumper that
his listeners asleep in their pews, he would stop his sermon and shod'
"Fire!"
The sleepers were alarmed and upon waking up, would
"Where?"
"In hell!" Wesley would roar. "In hell for those who sleep
preaching of the word."
There is a variety of choice astonishers you can
self unhooked from a telephone. For starters, you might try:
"The ambulance is waiting."
"His ann is caught where?"
"The bathroom is flooding."
"There is a flying saucer overhead."
"The governor is calling on the other line."
"I think I am having a heart attack."
"Who fell off the roof?."
"Someone is knocking on the front door."
"I have to go now and try to stop the bleeding."
"There is a mad dog on my front porch."
"My wife is caught in the wringer."
"We must have a bad connection. I can't hear you."
"It's time for my morphine shot."
Semper futelis
