Sam McGee's plea fares better than those of legendary namesake

Anchorage Daily News ^ | May 11, 2003 | Associated Press

[AlaskaErik]

APPEAL: Court rules name wasn't sufficient reason for drug search of package.

FAIRBANKS -- The state Court of Appeals has agreed that a drug conviction against a Fairbanks man with a famous name should be overturned in part because the name was not sufficient reason for a package to be searched.

Sam McGee, 72, had pleaded no contest to four counts of misconduct involving a controlled substance with the condition that he be allowed to appeal the convictions.

The Appeals Court confirmed a Superior Court decision to overturn the conviction.

McGee has a name made famous by Gold Rush poet Robert W. Service in "The Cremation of Sam McGee." The title character seeks gold in the Yukon but constantly whines about the stabbing cold. With his dying request, he asks the poem's narrator to cremate him.

When the narrator finds a shipwreck on Lake LaBerge, he sets it on fire and throws in the corpse, only to see McGee revive, smile and declare it's the first time he's been warm since he left Tennessee.

The Appeals Court opinion released Friday indicated judges had to consider whether a drug agent looking at FedEx packages in 1999 had reasonable suspicion to inspect a package addressed to McGee that contained cocaine.

One reason agent Larry Tower gave for inspecting the package was McGee's name.

"Tower concluded that the addressee was fictitious because he recalled 'a legend of Sam McGee or something' and the name struck him as 'comical,' " judges wrote.

Drug agents attached a sensor to the package and allowed it to continue to McGee's rural home east of Fairbanks. The sensor alerted agents when the package was opened. McGee was arrested at his home, where agents found cocaine, methadone and methamphetamine.

Fairbanks Superior Court Judge Charles Pengilly denied McGee's motion to have evidence against him dismissed, and he entered his plea.

The Appeals Court first concluded that Pengilly never gave appropriate consideration to McGee's claim that officers improperly inspected the package and ordered that the judge conduct more proceedings.

Pengilly held another hearing and Tower, an officer assigned to the Statewide Drug Enforcement Unit, was grilled on his reasons for inspecting the package.

Besides the name of the recipient, Tower testified that the package seemed odd for other reasons. He testified he felt a container inside the envelope and that the package came from Tacoma, Wash., a community he called "one of the source cities ... that Alaska receives a lot of drugs from."

Following Tower's testimony, Pengilly rejected the officer's notion that Tacoma was a drug source city for Alaska and ruled that there were not enough unusual characteristics about the package to warrant a search. The appeals court agreed with Pengilly's ruling.

[AlaskaErik]

Truth is so much stranger than fiction!

[ASOC]

As they say
"Welcome to Alaska - where the odds are good, but the goods are odd"

[John Beresford Tipton]

The Cremation of Sam McGee

There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.

Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee, where the cotton blooms and blows.
Why he left his home in the South to roam 'round the Pole, God only knows.
He was always cold, but the land of gold seemed to hold him like a spell;
Though he'd often say in his homely way that he'd "sooner live in hell".

On a Christmas Day we were mushing our way over the Dawson trail.
Talk of your cold! through the parka's fold it stabbed like a driven nail.
If our eyes we'd close, then the lashes froze till sometimes we couldn't
see;
It wasn't much fun, but the only one to whimper was Sam McGee.

And that very night, as we lay packed tight in our robes beneath the snow,
And the dogs were fed, and the stars o'erhead were dancing heel and toe,
He turned to me, and "Cap," says he, "I'll cash in this trip, I guess;
And if I do, I'm asking that you won't refuse my last request."

Well, he seemed so low that I couldn't say no; then he says with a sort of
moan:
"It's the cursed cold, and it's got right hold till I'm chilled clean
through to the bone.
Yet 'tain't being dead -- it's my awful dread of the icy grave that pains;
So I want you to swear that, foul or fair, you'll cremate my last remains."


A pal's last need is a thing to heed, so I swore I would not fail;
And we started on at the streak of dawn; but God! he looked ghastly pale.
He crouched on the sleigh, and he raved all day of his home in Tennessee;
And before nightfall a corpse was all that was left of Sam McGee.

There wasn't a breath in that land of death, and I hurried, horror-driven,
With a corpse half hid that I couldn't get rid, because of a promise given;

It was lashed to the sleigh, and it seemed to say: "You may tax your brawn
and brains,
But you promised true, and it's up to you to cremate those last remains."

Now a promise made is a debt unpaid, and the trail has its own stern code.
In the days to come, though my lips were dumb, in my heart how I cursed
that load.
In the long, long night, by the lone firelight, while the huskies, round in
a ring,
Howled out their woes to the homeless snows -- O God! how I loathed the
thing.

And every day that quiet clay seemed to heavy and heavier grow;
And on I went, though the dogs were spent and the grub was getting low;
The trail was bad, and I felt half mad, but I swore I would not give in;
And I'd often sing to the hateful thing, and it hearkened with a grin.

Till I came to the marge of Lake Lebarge, and a derelict there lay;
It was jammed in the ice, but I saw in a trice it was called the "Alice
May".
And I looked at it, and I thought a bit, and I looked at my frozen chum;
Then "Here", said I, with a sudden cry, "is my cre-ma-tor-ium."

Some planks I tore from the cabin floor, and I lit the boiler fire;
Some coal I found that was lying around, and I heaped the fuel higher;
The flames just soared, and the furnace roared -- such a blaze you seldom
see;
And I burrowed a hole in the glowing coal, and I stuffed in Sam McGee.

Then I made a hike, for I didn't like to hear him sizzle so;
And the heavens scowled, and the huskies howled, and the wind began to
blow.
It was icy cold, but the hot sweat rolled down my cheeks, and I don't know
why;
And the greasy smoke in an inky cloak went streaking down the sky.

I do not know how long in the snow I wrestled with grisly fear;
But the stars came out and they danced about ere again I ventured near;
I was sick with dread, but I bravely said: "I'll just take a peep inside.
I guess he's cooked, and it's time I looked";. . . then the door I opened
wide.

And there sat Sam, looking cool and calm, in the heart of the furnace roar;

And he wore a smile you could see a mile, and he said: "Please close that
door.
It's fine in here, but I greatly fear you'll let in the cold and storm --
Since I left Plumtree, down in Tennessee, it's the first time I've been
warm."

There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee

[Blue Screen of Death]

A 72 year old junkie? Most don't make it that long.