Most criminals I’m familiar with suffer from a disease known as: "Foot in mouth disease." Some criminals seem incapable of avoiding arrest. They practically beg for jail time.

There’s no telling how many unsolved crimes have been eventually solved only because the bad guy—arrested on a traffic charge—begins babbling to a jailhouse cellmate about his exploits in a case from "way back when."p>

The certified dummy in this week’s story didn’t wait for months or years to betray himself—he managed to do it instantaneously. We have the Spartanburg County (SC) Sheriff’s Department to thank for this episode.

Sergeant David Valentine is running RADAR along I-26 when he spots a fast mover. This is a 70 miles per hour zone but the driver in question is pushing the envelope at 84.

Sgt. Valentine stops the driver, we’ll call him Conrad, and goes through the preliminaries—driver’s license, registration, insurance card. Sarge explains that the RADAR clocked him at 14 miles over the posted speed limit. Then the officer goes back to his patrol car to write a ticket.

Moments later, when sarge returns to the driver, he notices that Conrad is unusually nervous. The suspect is so nervous that sarge is certain that something is wrong. The officer asks Conrad if he’ll give his "consent to search" the vehicle.

"No, sir," spouts out Conrad, "I don’t want you to look at my pot—er, I mean my bags." Sarge has just been handed a clue here that he’s on the right track. He calls for a K-9 unit.

The K-9 and his deputy handler arrive moments later. "Casey," a drug sniffing dog, is put to work and finds the following: marijuana in the door pockets and glove box, handrolled marijuana cigarettes, a torsion scale, plus 10 pills that later prove to be Xantax.

Conrad is, of course, placed under arrest, cuffed, and booked into the county jail. He is charged with speeding, possession with intent to distribute marijuana, and possession with intent to distribute Xantax.

Conrad is not charged with impromptu mouth. Thankfully, for law enforcement, that’s not a crime.