I didn't want to resurrect the old dead horse of "Corroboration, cowwoboration," but I came across this gem of "Copspeak" in an offense report that was too good to keep to myself:

"The witness was VOID OF CLOTHES."

Why couldn't he just say "she was nekkid/naked/nude/undressed"????? What fun stuff have you come across lately?

Well one reason might be because, naked means you ain't got no clothes on. But NEKKID, means you ain't got no clothes on and you're up to something. (credit to Lewis Grizzard).

Probably want to read the report and see what else was going on.

At least the officer did not indicate that the person was "clothing challenged"

I had a pre-trial hearing involving an open-container violation as the probable cause for the stop. The Officer told me that he recognized the can sitting in the cupholder of the Defendant's truck as a Coors Light can. He said he knew it was a Coors Light because that's the brand of beer he drinks. That's what I wanted him to say on the stand.

During the hearing I asked him how he new that the can he observed was a Coors Light and not something else. The Officer responded:

"Because that is the particular alcholic beverage that I prefer to consume."

Way back in the olden days of ALR hearings, I always wondered why the troopers always wrote their offense reports in the third person, i.e., "this trooper observed suspect ...." I believe they are still taught to write them that way.

Janette Ansolabehere
SAGC
DPS

Our officers also appear to be trained not to "say" or "tell" anything to anyone. Instead, they uniformly "advise." (E.g., "This officer did then advise the subject that his fly was open.") I think the training all comes from cobbled-together scenes from Seinfeld. Specifically, there was one of Elaine's acquaintances who always referred to himself in the third person. The overall style seems to be drawn from Kramer.

I thought of Ms. Starnes today during an interminable voir dire when opposing counsel said cowabaration about 10,000 times.

I just returned from doing a training in Bermuda, where the prosecutors actually spent time trying to convince the police officers to stop referring to the defendant in an offense reports as a "culprit." Seems their British background led them to find it to be an offensive suggestion of guilt before trial. They preferred "suspect" before formal charge and "accused" after formal charge.

When they asked my opinion, I had to indicate that many officers here simply refer to the defendant, regardless of the formality of the charges, as "that dirtbag." It took them a moment to decide whether or not I was kidding.

Ok, how do you get on the list to teach classes in Bermuda?

Join the Air Force and we can have you teaching in all kinds of interesting places.

Bob, are you back in Texas now?

Back in mid-80's we had a strong minded 7-11 clerk who didn't take nothin from no one.

A guy came in one night and placed a 2-liter bottle of coke on the counter. When the clerk looked up with his change, she saw that he had his pulled out his penis and laid it up on the counter. Before he could do or say anything else, the clerk picked up the coke and smashed it down, YES you know on what and the turd ran (OUCH - I still don't know how) from the store.

One of the officers I worked with was responding and located the guy limping down the side of the road, crying and still holding himself - I guess too painful to put it back in.

At the guy's trial - the officer was asked why he believed this guy was the suspect because he did not yet have a physical description at the time of dispatch. The officer who is one of those very detailed oriented and visual memory type of people
told the jury "because the gentleman was limping away from the area of the convenience store holding his flacid penis in his hand".

No one asked, or had to for that matter, why it was flacid (and maybe flattened as well).

My favorite bit of constababble: A detective went to the hospital to interview the victim of an agg assault by firearm. Where normal types would have written something in his report to the effect of "I asked the victim what happened," the hero of this story put the following:

I requested of the victim to please relate to me the sequence of events that had transpired this p.m. pertaining to his assault.

Or this classic: the witness was an I.D./crime scene inv. called to the stand in the punishment phase of a death penalty case. He was there to say "yep, those prints on these pen packs are his. ?? "Do you know the Defendant DLC/" Instead of the eloquent, adequate, and accurate "Yes," what I got was "Only in connection with my investigation of his identity pertaining to this investigation"!@#$#@

What a great word.

Although 'dirtbag' has a nice ring to it, I usually call them 'the bad guy'. (gender neutral)

There's a defense attorney here in town that refers to each of his clients as 'my hero' or 'this hero'. I find that pretty entertaining.

I wonder if he means that in the Robin Hood sense or in the Tupac Shakur/Notorious B.I.G./Snoop Dogg parlance.