I said: "Under the Open Fields Doctrine, you have the right to allow the game warden to do anything he wants on your land."
SH said: "That is absolutely untrue.
The Open Fields Doctrine allows Conservation Officers, in the line of duty, to enter private property to check hunters and TO PROTECT HUMAN HEALTH AND SAFETY.
Should a conservation officer get your permission to search your land for a missing child in a raging blizzard????
Should a conservation officer get your permission to put out a fire because some idiot threw a cigarette out the window???
Should a conservation officer get your permission to move livestock out onto your private land after a vehicle accident tore the fence up???
Well??????"
Excuse me SH, but that is absolutely TRUE. I legally have the right to allow the game warden to do anything that I can legally do on my own place. Under Open Fields, I DO NOT have the right to keep him off my private property. I don't even have the right to know when he is on my land, and if I don't like it, that's just too bad. Gov. Rounds and John Cooper tell me they can come on my land any time they feel like it and there is nothing a mere citizen like me can do about it.
Now tell me something else, if there is a child lost in a blizzard do you think for one minute that the game warden would be called in to find him? Get real. Every able bodied person in the country would be searching and the CO would be the absolute last person we would think to call for help.
And put out a fire? When is the last time you have seen a game warden on the fire line? I'm a red-card firefighter and EMT with our local fire department, never miss a fire within 60 miles of our ranch, and I have yet to see either our local CO or our trapper fighting fire with the rest of us, not even at the big Long Pines fire burning close to both of them. The trapper's wife did staff one of the information stations though.
Read SB122, it would not stop a CO from either rendering assistance or stopping a crime if he has knowledge or probable cause.
SH: "How ironic that this whole issue stemmed from the arrest of your trespassing private pilot.
What about LB's private property rights hmmmm?
OH, THAT'S DIFFERENT ISN'T IT????
I guess private property rights should be exempted for private pilots huh?
Amazing what you can justify with a little imagination."
You keep bringing Lex Burghduff up and you don't know diddly squat about the case. Come on up and read the trial transcripts for yourself and you will see that all Janvrin did was to shoot a wounded coyote that had run off the neighbor's land onto Burghduff's land FROM THE AIR!! If you have read the road hunting law GF&P supported that was just struck down by the courts, he would have had the right to actually go on Burghduff's land to retrieve the coyote if he had wanted.
What would you have had Janvrin do? Leave the wounded coyote to die a lingering death? That's humane?
That would have been fine with Burghduff though. He is currently serving time on a felony charge for almost beating his second wife to death. His first wife quit him after he did the same thing to her. You are not exactly on the side of angels here.
Out here in God's country, we do have great respect for the law. I wish I could say the same about Gov. Rounds and John Cooper.