[pct-l] Search and Seizure

[waynekraft at verizon.net (Wayne Kraft)]

As a government prosecutor of some 20 odd years experience, I was about to post my brief explaining how I'd win your motion to suppress the evidence yielded as a result of the ranger's warrantless search of your backpack upon her probable cause to believe you'd violated the law (she saw you haul a ripped gunny sack containing 3 lbs. of Snickers bars out of your tent when you broke camp this morning) and exigent circumstances (she saw a confirmed Snickers-addict black bear sniffing the wind just over the next ridge).  But then I made the following observations:

1.  Some of you folks are just a law unto yourselves. I've seen your type a thousand times across the table. I have no truck with you and confess a sort of bemused admiration for your willingness to absorb the punishment heaped upon you.
2. Dave pretty much said it all.

But here's the deal.  The government has found itself a problem:  Human-food habituated bears.  After much debate and deliberation and expense, the government has settled upon a solution: mandatory use of bear cannisters in the backcountry. If the problem of human-food habituated bears abates, the government will conclude that bear cannisters work and will continue the program as it is.  If the problem does not abate and hikers are found to be a compliant group of bear cannister carriers, the government will conclude that mandatory bear cannisters don't work and will try something else.  If, God forbid, the problem does not abate and hikers are found to be an arrogant, lawless bunch of know-it-alls, well, hold onto to your hats. Trails will be closed, penalties increased and back country arrests made.  Some hikers will discover that resisting arrest is a more serious offense than failing to carry a cannister and that the unlawfulness of the arrest is not a legal defense to to the crime of resisting arrest.  Others will find their Lekis useless while hiking handcuffed to the trail head.  

Personally, I've found that rangers and law enforcement officers have never yet failed to reward my cheerful cooperation with their requests.  You can make friends and gain a certain amount of breathing room this way.  If, on the other hand, you choose to protest the injustice of the intrusion, do it honorably in the tradition of Ghandi, Thoreau and Martin Luther King.  Don't tell lies, mislead and conceal the truth. Be politely outspoken in your defiance of injustice and accept the consequences as your badge of courage. 

Above all else, of course, HYOH.

Wayne Kraft