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May 03, 2005

Things they never taught me in law school

Someone handed me a copy of the Western Police District Investigator's Handbook, which purports to be their "bible" when it comes to crime investigation. Unintentionally (or I'd like to think so), there are a lot of "gems" in the handbook which may not directly contribute to speedy resolution of crime cases or even effective investigative work but are good examples of things they don't teach law students in law school.

From Chapter 20 entitled "Homicide (Generic) Investigation" come these gems:

"5. Terms encountered in Homicide (p. 57)

(h) Suicide-- Taking one's own life voluntarily and intentionally to death. [My comment: I hope so because I cannot imagine taking one's own life and living to tell the tale.]

xxx

(n) Homocide-- Not the killing of a homosexual but a misspelling of homicide." [My comment: this is so funny by itself, I don't even have a comment to do justice to this.]

Also from chapter 20 (p. 59 this time), this particularly strange advise to an investigator:

"(a) If the suspect is at the crime scene, do not advise him of his constitutional rights unless he is to be questioned there immediately for evidence of his own guilt to be used against him in court." [My comment: Du-uh]

And this one (from chapter 20, p. 59) I found particularly hilarious:

"(x) Semen samples in rape or rape with homicide cases should be obtained medically not by hand." [My comment: this couldn't be any funnier if the author had deliberately written it to be funny. I almost died laughing when I read this.]

And, this from . . . you guessed it, Chapter 20, p. 59:

"(g) Have a psychiatrist." [My comment: Shades of Hannibal Lecter]

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

peculiarly funny :)

i have a friend who went to the police station to get a certificate of something for his 'lost' driver's licence. Bad news was it took them forever to type and print it. The police who wrote down in a huge ledger what "happened" asked him to check his spelling and grammar.

by the way, I was itching to introduce myself to you during the UG in Cavite last Sat but i chickened out. Was waiting for Ella and ask her instroduce me to you, but come mass in the afternoon, no Ella showed up. Anyway see you in the UG 2007 here in subic! hehe
chard

Ted said...

chickened out? bakit naman bro. too bad, maybe next time we see each other--UG2K6 at Lucena; not too sure I'll still be in Lingkod when UG2K7 at Subic comes around. : )

Anonymous said...

yah chickened out 'cause like i was a tad intimidated, really :)
ella knows that i am quite madaldal online but to be honest, i am a really shy guy in the flesh :)
not sure for the UG2K7? why bro, are you considering the priesthood
ba? :p
chard