Oh ye of little faith. Finals are tonight. So, naturally, I’m freaking completely out. Not really. I’m doing okay.

Every year, I make up acronyms to go with the various things I have to remember. This year, Heapcars and FLIGRRR are my two for Pre-Trial. Heapcars just happens to be the list of the exceptions to the search warrant requirement and includes: hot pursuit, evanescence, arrested, plainview, consent, automobile, regulatory, and stop/frisk. FLIGRRR is the list of exceptions to the 4A exclusionary rule and stands for fruit of the poisonous tree exceptions (three of those – inevitable discovery, attenuated, and independent discovery), LEO observations, impeachment evidence, good faith reliance, reliance on records, reliance on statutes, and reliance on case law. Pschew! I feel better now.

Will I remember all of this when it comes time for me to write it all out? Will it even be necessary? Who knows! You never know what they are going to ask on an exam, and it is usually true that whatever you’ve studied the most is exactly what they won’t ask. So, it doesn’t seem to matter what you study. It’s not going to be on the test.

So, the way I feel about it today? Use common sense, remember some of the “cop” shows you’ve seen on TV (yes, some of it is real, no all of it is certainly not real), and hope for the best. It’s a crap shoot, to say the least.

My parents used to play a game called Pitch. It’s a card game, and it has something to do with finding all of the cards with the same suit. I played it when I was a kid and teenager, but that has been a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, so I don’t remember much about it. The one thing I do remember, though, is that if you were in two situations – either at the end of your rope or on top of the world – you “shot the moon”, meaning you bet it all. I think about that often, and I use it in my life still today. Sometimes, you just have to shoot the moon and go for it all. There are times when you shouldn’t, but most of the time, you should, I think anyway. You have to give whatever you’re doing your all and hope that it all works out. This doesn’t mean, of course, that you should shoot the moon when you have not prepared, although sometimes that is just exactly what you have to do!

Here’s hoping all of you taking finals out there shoot the moon and survive finals season once again.