Editorial
Front Page - Friday, July 3, 2009
I Swear...
But is the Pope really Catholic?
Vic Fleming
When she was a deputy prosecuting attorney, Jeannie Denniston sent me “the first chapter of [her] book,” giving me permission to use it as I pleased. This goes back a few years, but the story is worth re-telling.
“As deputy prosecutor of a sparsely populated rural county, I prosecuted not only petty criminals, but also violators of our game and fish regulations,” Jeannie wrote. And one day, before having accumulated all the experience that she would accumulate, Jeannie had to step up on short and prosecute on “Game and Fish Day.” Knowing little about the case, or the area involved in the case, Jeannie “began to just shoot from the hip.”
This case involved “a tree with a large slit at the bottom.” The slit was full of Alpo. Above the tree there stood a tree stand. The scene of the suspected crime was a national forest; thus, the U.S. Forest Rangers were notified to investigate illegal bear hunting.
(My friends who hunt deer are teased about shooting Bambi. Are those who hunt bear accused of shooting Yogi?)
Observing the defendant in the stand,
With bow and arrow in his hand,
The warden issued a citation.
Defendant wondered, “Probation?”
(Sorry, could not resist.)
The defendant “asserted that he was baiting for coyote.” (Are coyote hunters accused of shooting Wile E.?). Coyotes are a nuisance wherever they exist, Jeannie knew. “It’s hard to be too much against anyone who’s trying to get rid of one.”
Thus, “it became important for me to establish that the true prey was bear.” Pray tell, how did she go about this? She continued shooting from the hip, asking questions, the answers to which tended to show that bears are wont to eat large quantities in short time frames and that if a bear has to dig food from a tree slit, it slows down the process. Baiters know this.
Moreover, the diminution of certain vegetation in the area was consistent with the roaming of an animal the size of a bear, said the witness. But then the officer answered a question that had not been asked:
“Plus, I found 12 bear scats in the area,” he said.
“I’m a city girl,” Jeannie wrote, “and I had no idea what the officer meant. So I broke the cardinal rule and asked a question to which I did not know the answer.”
“What’s a bear scat?”
“It’s a piece of bear poop.”
There was tittering in the courtroom, but Jeannie felt she had made her case and was about to sit down when the officer continued: “And I collected some.” He patted a nearby box.
“Now,” Jeannie wrote, “I am faced with the dilemma of whether to offer the bear scat into evidence. How would the judge feel about being presented with a box of bear scat?” Even as she pondered this ethical dilemma, her witness bailed her out:
“I sent the evidence off to the State Crime Lab.”
Jeannie (with utter calm): “And what result did you receive?”
Producing an official piece of paper, the officer testified proudly, “It says right here that the scat is indeed from a bear.” State’s Exhibit A was admitted into evidence.
The defendant made the mistake, Jeannie concluded, of admitting that, in addition to dog food, he had used sweet corn, oats, and doughnuts in baiting for his coyote. “The Judge, an avid hunter, knew that you only use doughnuts to bait for a bear. They have a sweet tooth like no other animal.”
© 2005 Vic Fleming
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