He appealed the case, arguing that Lt. Cutcliffe's search "exceeded its scope." In a ruling handed down last week, the Fourth District Court of Appeal upheld Tognaci's conviction, saying "it is not clear from the evidence that the officer actually touched appellant's genitals."
However, the court expressed serious concerns about the BSO's crotch patrol, because travelers who consent to being searched aren't informed that it will focus on "this most private area of the body."
The judges also questioned the value of such methods in drug enforcement. They cited Lt. Cutcliffe's testimony that she had searched "hundreds of men's crotches without discovering any contraband."
Said the court: "We emphasize that these encounters are random, not generated by any articulable suspicion of wrongdoing, not by a drug courier profile, nor by a fear of the officer's safety."
Rather, the searches are motivated only by the contour of a suspect's pants. Sternly the judges added: "And at least based upon the hundreds of searches which not do not produce any drugs, we conclude from the testimony that the genital search is not a very effective investigative tool [the court's word, not mine] … "
For her part, Lt. Cutcliffe doesn't seem to mind below-the-belt surveillance. She said it's easier for her to do it because most male deputies are reluctant to search a male suspect so intimately.
Nonsmugglers seldom complain—flattered, perhaps, that the natural topography of their trousers made someone think they were carrying something extra.
Still, problems extend beyond the appellate court's Fourth Amendment concerns. Now that the BSO strategy has been publicized, lots of very lonely guys are probably heading for the Fort Lauderdale airport in the hopes of being frisked, and frisked slowly, by Lt. Cutcliffe.
Then there's the more delicate public-relations challenge. Some tourists who come to South Florida might not wish to be groped as they disembark. Should we warn them to wear baggy pants? To avoid crinkly underwear? To carry their cellular phones in a back pocket?
It's an unusual welcome, that's for sure. When you get off the plane in Hawaii, you get a lei around your neck. Here in Florida you get a hand on your zipper.
In spite of the court's warning, Sheriff Nick Navarro has announced no plans to terminate the crotch patrol. So if you're passing through the airport, don't be shocked if a female cop stops you and whispers: "Is that a kilo in your pants, or are you just glad to see me?"
Tourist Season
Only a fool fails to follow these rules
September 19, 1986
Florida's new tourism jingle is catching some flak, and this is too bad. The $4 million slogan, unveiled this week, is: "FLORIDA—The Rules Are Different Here."
This is the first honest tourist slogan we've had in a long time, and it's a shame that a few naysayers are picking on it. The rap against the new jingle is that people in the country's heartland might misconstrue the part about how "the rules are different here."
What's to misconstrue? Accept the phrase exactly for what it says and you have a public service announcement; a friendly warning, if you will. We should be delighted that our tourism promoters finally are taking a responsible approach.
Fort Lauderdale Police Chief Ron Cochran says the new tourist pitch is "about the dumbest thing I ever heard." He says it promotes an image of rampant lawlessness. I say it merely informs.
By way of counterattack, Beber, Silverstein, the agency that developed the Rules campaign, hired a big research company to go out and interview 11 New Yorkers to see if they were scared off by the jingle. Why it required a big research company to find 11 talkative New Yorkers I'm not sure. Naturally the New Yorkers said no, the slogan didn't scare them away from Florida. These people had all taken the subway to Yankee Stadium and obviously were not scared by anything.
The problem with the new go-Florida campaign is not the slogan, but some of the rules they dreamed up to go along with it. For instance: "You must remove your wingtips before going swimming."
Or: "You must get suntanned in a place you've never been tan before." Or: "You are required to watch at least one sunrise."
These rules are sort of cute—maybe not 4 million bucks worth of cute, but medium cute. Collectively, however, they hardly present the exotic, Vice-ish image of Florida that Yuppie travelers all over America are hungering for.
What potential tourists really need is some useful advice, because the rules down here are definitely different.
RULE NO. 1: You must remove your Beretta shoulder holster before going swimming.
RULE NO. 2: You must get wounded in a place you've never been wounded before.
RULE NO. 3: At spring break you must never stand for too long beneath a hotel full of drunken college kids.
RULE NO. 4: You must never stop on Interstate 95 to ask directions from a teenager holding a cinderblock.
RULE NO. 5: You are required to watch at least one sunrise, because that's what time the 10 P.M. Metrobus finally shows up.
RULE NO. 6: You must never light a cigar with 12 drums of pure ether in the back of your car.
RULE NO. 7: You must never wear your beeper into the sauna.
RULE NO. 8: You are required to take home at least a dozen giant Bufo toads as souvenir doorstops.
RULE NO. 9: You must stand in line for three hours outside Joe's Stone Crab, only to be mistakenly rounded up in a Border Patrol sweep of South Beach.
RULE NO. 10: You must never wear a tie to your arraignment.
RULE NO. 11: You must never, ever use your turn signal while changing lanes.
RULE NO. 12: You must never open your front door to a gang of armed men wearing police badges, black Ray bans and rubber Ed Meese masks. You must never believe them if they tell you all Florida cops drive unmarked Maseratis.
RULE NO. 13: You must never carry correct change when going through a busy tollbooth, and always spend as much time as possible chatting with the cashier about which way Sea World is.
RULE NO. 14: At the first sight of an actual Florida alligator you must pull off the road and feed it enormous bags of Toll House cookies until it grows so tame that it eats your dachshund.
RULE NO. 15: You must not be alarmed to discover that two entire floors of your hotel have been rented out to the federal Witness Protection Program.
Auto trunks are no place to park bodies
January 21, 1987
Bust our buttons! This week's crime news brings another unique distinction to Dade County: The Car-Trunk Murder Capital of the United States.
Last year local automobile trunks yielded a record number of homicide victims (12), a statistic provoking comment from no less an authority than Dr. Joseph Davis, the unflappable chief medical examiner.
"Years ago," he reflected, "if you found somebody dead in a trunk, it was unusual. There was a great deal of interest. Now it's a ho-hum thing."
Your basic car-trunk case goes like this: Some poor soul is out walking his poodle or pulling into the shopping mall when he notices a Foul Odor emanating from another car.
Next the police are summoned, the trunk of the offending vehicle (usually a late-model, luxury sedan) is pried open and therein discovered one or more extremely dead persons who, more likely than not, have had a passing attachment to the narcotics trade.
A seamy spectacle, to be sure. "Not a pleasant scene to go to," says Metro-Dade detective Al Singleton.
"It's a bother," Dr. Davis agrees. "Another thing that's annoying … now you find a car parked at the airport—stinks to high heaven—and for some reason you have to wait six hours while they go find a judge to get a court order to open the thing up! Everybody knows there's a body inside."