truTV: Not Reality. Actuality.

Loser: A 26-year-old man, arrested in an Internet sting trying to meet a "15-year-old girl" in Fort Worth, Tex., in July (a "girl" who was, of course, a cop), asked the arresting officer if he'd be released on bond in time to make a scheduled meeting with his fiancee about their upcoming wedding.

At the May court hearing in Nashville, Tenn., for Denza D. McGee, 19, accused of fatally shooting a man, McGee's buddy Gerald Cunningham, 23, showed up to give moral support. However, the witness who was in court to identify McGee said she also recognized Cunningham as McGee's partner in the home invasion and shooting, and Cunningham was pulled out of the gallery and arrested .

Gary Lee Owens, 42, was arrested on drug charges in Stilwell, Kan., in April, even though police weren't looking for drugs when they knocked on his door. The police had received a tip that two fugitives were hiding at that address, and since Owens knew nothing about that, he matter-of-factly gave them permission to search the house but then added the restriction "everywhere but the garage." The police naturally decided that that comment was worth a search warrant, and later found the remains of a suspected methamphetamine lab.

In Washington, D.C., in February, Ronald T. Stephenson, 20, was convicted of murder in an out-of-control June 2000 robbery. The key police evidence was a videotape of Stephenson subsequently confessing to the crime in a visit to the home of his partner, Dwight Walker (who had, unbeknownst to Stephenson, become an informant). On the tape, Stephenson is heard to tell Walker that there is no way the police can get him for the murder unless, for example, they somehow caught him admitting on videotape that he did it.

A Montana district judge ruled in January that for a homicide suspect with apparent multiple personalities, exercise of a Miranda right by one of them carries over to all the others. Tessa Haley lawyered up when police sought to question her about the stabbing death of her roommate, and though police questioning ceased, Haley transformed into "Martha" and spontaneously confessed to the crime, according to officers. Judge Thomas Honzel ruled that Martha's statements could not be used against Haley (although Haley is still free under existing law to argue that she is not responsible for Martha's crime).

Wrong Place, Wrong Time: Ron Landon, 32, was captured by police in Belleville, Ill., in December after he ran through a Lone Oak Farm pasture to avoid arrest for several traffic tickets. Landon tried to hide in a shallow, water-filled ditch, but several horses wandered over to take a closer look at him, drawing officers' attention to the ditch.