Unser case shows something is horribly wrong in the U.S. Forest Service


http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/2011/03/unser-case-shows-something-horribly-wrong-us-forest-service


Mention the words "Bobby Unser" to sports fans and most of them would immediately think about the Indy 500, the "greatest spectaacle in racing," which the New Mexico native won three times (1968, 1975 and 1981).

But ask certain enforcement types at the U.S. Forest Service about those two words and the first words that come to their mind will probably be more along the lines of "criminal" and "let's make him an example."

Long retired from racing as a driver and from his days as an ABC commentator on motorsports, Unser a few years ago made national headlines when he and a friend went snowmobiling in New Mexico and became lost in an unexpected blizzard.

Unser and his friend came perilously close to dying, but ultimately made it out. That's when their real trial began. After being lured by an offer of help from the Forest Service in finding his snowmobile, Unser tried to describe as best he could the most likely location for the vehicle.

Shortly thereafter, the Forest Service charged Unser with illegally trespassing on public wilderness lands. After being found guilty, Unser, with assistance from the Mountain States Legal Defense Foundation, contested the charges and ultimately took it to the Supreme Court.

Unfortunately, the high court declined to hear Unser's final appeal. The story of how federal environmental bureaucrats took advantage of Unser, filed criminal charges against him, then forced him to prove his innocence ought to outrage every American citizen.

Check out this video just released by The Heritage Foundation's Over-Criminalization Project. It tells Unser's story and demonstates why Americans must demand redress of these kinds of government outrages before it's too late:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfR4PLNdr_c

I've heard of the washington post and times. I've never heard of the examiner. I assume its a reputable rag.
I would also assume that I would also be found guilty
I think this is a non issue

How about Unser not damaging national forests with his snow mobile.

Perhaps if he went snowmobiling where it's legal we wouldnt be reading this.
Perhaps if he'd have wondered why nobody else had thought of snowmobiling where he was he would have noticed that he was traipsing through a national forest and perhaps it wasnt a good idea after all.

This is a non story and I won't lose any sleep over it

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

I agree with Keith on this one.

The article says they became lost in a blizzard. It's entirely possible they wandered onto protected territory while unable to see in the blizzard.

After almost dying in the blizzard, they get an offer of help, only to be later tried for criminal tresspassing. That's not fair to those who almost lost their lives. Did the law have to prove they were purposely on protected property knowingly and willingly? No. That's an outrage.

transcripts

http://www.wildwilderness.org/wi/unser.htm

How is it that someone lives in a town yet doesnt know theres a national forest about 5 miles away. Seems someone was playing dumb. Check out google maps for Chama NM

It seems to me that a planned snowmobiling ride and an experienced rider would have known a few things about where he was riding. again ignorance is no excuse

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

transcripts

http://www.wildwilderness.org/wi/unser.htm

How is it that someone lives in a town yet doesnt know theres a national forest about 5 miles away. Seems someone was playing dumb. Check out google maps for Chama NM

It seems to me that a planned snowmobiling ride and an experienced rider would have known a few things about where he was riding. again ignorance is no excuse

I never said he didn't know it was only 5 miles away. What I said was in the middle of a blizzard it's entirely possible that he couldn't see and ended up in protected territory. I don't care how experienced you are, if you're in a blizzard and can't see where you're going, you're going to end up where you don't want to be. It's called being lost and losing your sense of direction.

That's not ignorance of the law. That's ignorance of where you are because natural events obscure your vision.

Stop trying to apply the law so coldly and realize that sometimes circumstances are beyond one's control and they deserve a break once in a while. Laws are made to prevent people from willingly doing things that society considers wrong, but they were never meant to punish people whom innocently broke the law for whatever reasons.

It is up to each and every one of us to make sure that the law doesn't get applied so blindly and ignorantly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Washington_Examiner

basically the Washington Examiner is a conservative rag
that is given away for free.

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from my read of the transcripts they had trouble with both machines as the storm hit. Since we don't have the actual route that they took its very difficult for anyone to actually judge this one. One can either assume the rangers were being jerks or they saw that he blatantly disregarded the borders of the national forest land. They did ask him to retrace his movements and apparently he gave enough evidence to warrant a ticket.

We still have 5th amendment rights in this country. Either they read him his rights or not. who can tell from the transcripts. either way he incriminated himself.

BTW the fine was at a maximum $5000
http://sports.jrank.org/pages/5017/Unser-Bobby-More-Controversy-Off-Tracks.html

Unser had violated the Wilderness Act of 1964 by riding his snowmobile in a federally protected area. Unser was convicted of the misdemeanor on June 12, 1997. The maximum penalty was $5,000 and six months in jail, but Unser was only fined $75 because of his harrowing ordeal in the mountains.

missed that one didnt we. wow $75.00 and he took it to the supreme court. talk about frivolous.

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

from my read of the transcripts they had trouble with both machines as the storm hit. Since we don't have the actual route that they took its very difficult for anyone to actually judge this one. One can either assume the rangers were being jerks or they saw that he blatantly disregarded the borders of the national forest land. They did ask him to retrace his movements and apparently he gave enough evidence to warrant a ticket.

So we simply trust that law officers are somehow more honest than the average citizen and we take them at their word?

I've known enough police officers to take up the 20/80 rule. 20% of the police officers are actually trying to do a good job, 80% just want to play hero in their own mind.

We still have 5th amendment rights in this country. Either they read him his rights or not. who can tell from the transcripts. either way he incriminated himself.

No one wants to incriminate themselves. I would think that the guy honestly thought what he was doing wasn't wrong, otherwise he would have tried to lie about it and cover it up (based on criminal psychology, that's what criminals do when they know what they did was wrong). The fact that he was trying to cooperate means he didn't think he was in the wrong.

What happened to innocent until proven guilty? Why did they assume he knowingly broke the law? Why should we assume they were right in their assumption?

BTW the fine was at a maximum $5000
http://sports.jrank.org/pages/5017/Unser-Bobby-More-Controversy-Off-Tracks.html

Unser had violated the Wilderness Act of 1964 by riding his snowmobile in a federally protected area. Unser was convicted of the misdemeanor on June 12, 1997. The maximum penalty was $5,000 and six months in jail, but Unser was only fined $75 because of his harrowing ordeal in the mountains.

missed that one didnt we. wow $75.00 and he took it to the supreme court. talk about frivolous.

If I thought I was innocent, I would take it all the way to the Supreme Court too. Are are you actually advocating paying small fines just to swallow your sense of justice?

Traffic courts do the same, by the way. If a police officer cites you with breaking a traffic law for which you know you are innocent, the fine is usually less than the amount it takes to fight it in court. Because most people live paycheck to paycheck, they simply pay the fine and move on with their lives. This is not the kind of just society I wish to live in!

And you would call it "frivolous"? Wow.

frivolous in that the supreme court wouldn't even hear the case since there isn't anything that really needed deciding. It seems pretty cut and dried. Though I'm not sure what his angle was in approaching the supreme court.

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

Frivolous... cut and dried? Tell that to someone who believes in their own innocence.

Frivolous is suing McDonald's because you burned yourself with hot coffee.

when someone says something is horribly wrong with something and the person if fined $75 I think the article is vastly overblown. I paid more for my last traffic ticket.

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

when someone says something is horribly wrong with something and the person if fined $75 I think the article is vastly overblown. I paid more for my last traffic ticket.

That's a matter of opinion. The person who has to pay the fine and have it on their record may not feel the same as you.

Something is horribly wrong when we've become complacent to micro-fines and an unjust system.

so should we write up a thread every time we get a ticket. or get caught by a stoplight camera. I can think of better things to do than wasting everyones time including my own in attempt to beat what is essentially a parking ticket.

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

I think we should tell each other so we can do something about it. It's never a waste of time if it makes this place a better country to live in.

If you don't like to hear about it, then don't read it. Other people may not feel the same as you.

i'd like to reiterate that we still don't and probably never will have a map of his whereabouts on those days. Since we can either assume he showed them a path that went into national forest land or he came close and they made an assumption. Either way we do not have enough information to make a judgement. I'd like to think that the forest rangers weren't just trying to fill their quota much like the cops in most local municipalities.

I can understand how he feels jerked around because he nearly died. However much like any idiot that goes into the back country as a rule you should tell someone where you are going. You never know when you may have to cut your own arm off because of your own stupidity

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

We don't need a map of his whereabouts. It doesn't matter if we assume he was on private/protected property or not. It doesn't change the fact that he and his friend got lost in a blizzard and needed help. The authorities should be there to help the citizenry and not arrest them on charges based upon an unknowing breaking of the law.

The problem is we should all be bothered by stories like this. We shouldn't be oppressed by law officers just trying to make their quotas, nor should we be held guilty in times of extreme circumstances. Survival instincts override man-made laws every time.

By saying his taking the case to the Supreme Court is frivolous or by saying he's guilty and it's cut and dried are still judgement calls. Either you believe he willingly broke the law and expected to get away with it or you believe he was confronted with natural forces that forced him to go into survivalist mode and he shouldn't be punished for trying to live.

he was not cited for trying to live. He was cited for violating law.

If you are driving at 100mph, get in a wreck and are injured, you will be assisted. You will most likely be cited for wreckless driving as well.

This is not because you got injured. It is because you were doing wrong in the first place. And rest assured you would not and should not receive a lightened fine.

From my reading, the rangers did offer assistance. They also wrote up the violation. They did a fine job.

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Janice

he was not cited for trying to live. He was cited for violating law.

If you are driving at 100mph, get in a wreck and are injured, you will be assisted. You will most likely be cited for wreckless driving as well.

This is not because you got injured. It is because you were doing wrong in the first place. And rest assured you would not and should not receive a lightened fine.

From my reading, the rangers did offer assistance. They also wrote up the violation. They did a fine job.

There's a major difference between getting into an accident (even a life threatening one) where at least someone is at fault and when nature intervenes and no one is at fault.

When we actually put our laws above innocent victims of a natural occurrence, then we all have lost a part of our humanity.

You may as well cite each and every survivor in Japan who ends up where they shouldn't be and call that a fine job too.

From my reading, they did a piss poor job.

Your opinion noted. The fact remains that no one forced him to take an off road vehicle out, in bad weather, to a restricted area. They did not put the
enforcement above help, but it was not excluded by it either.

To blame nature for a human error is not recognizing the series of events.

Side note: I think the Unsers on a race track are awesome. But in this case,
it is much ado about nothing.

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Janice

Your opinion noted. The fact remains that no one forced him to take an off road vehicle out, in bad weather, to a restricted area. They did not put the
enforcement above help, but it was not excluded by it either.

To blame nature for a human error is not recognizing the series of events.

Who says they started out in bad weather?