Environmentalists Upset over DOJ Not Throwing the Book at People to Protect Endangered Species

So apparently there's this one case where ignorance of the law actually is an excuse (one that doesn't require you to be a police officer seizing a citizen's cellphone camera). The Department of Justice has a policy dating back to the '90s where they will not prosecute somebody for killing an endangered animal unless they are sure the offender knew it was protected.

An activist group is now suing the DOJ over this guideline, claiming it's being used to let people get away with murder – animal murder. The Los Angeles Times reports:

Critics charge that the 15-year-old McKittrick policy provides a loophole that has prevented criminal prosecution of dozens of individuals who killed grizzly bears, highly endangered California condors and whooping cranes as well as 48 federally protected Mexican wolves.

The policy stems from a Montana case in which Chad McKittrick was convicted under the Endangered Species Act for killing a wolf near Yellowstone National Park in 1995. He argued that he was not guilty because he thought he was shooting a wild dog.

McKittrick appealed the conviction and lost, but the Justice Department nonetheless adopted a policy that became the threshold for taking on similar cases: prosecutors must prove that the individual knowingly killed a protected species.

The Department of Justice isn't exactly known for its reluctance to file federal charges at people. Activists and federal wildlife managers, however, believe the rule is being used as an excuse for hunters to play dumb.

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Comments

[sarcasmic]

Mens rea lives! I thought it was dead, but it lives!

[Acosmist]

"Specific intent" is what you're looking for. Pretty sure mens rea is alive and well.

[sarcasmic]

Really? It was my understanding that criminal intent didn't matter anymore.

[Agammamon]

Only on "Law and Order".

[Austrian Anarchy]

It worked for Linda Tripp, and knowledge of the law was built into the MD phone conversation law too.

[A Serious Man]

Critics charge that the 15-year-old McKittrick policy provides a loophole that has prevented criminal prosecution of dozens of individuals who killed grizzly bears, highly endangered California condors and whooping cranes as well as 48 federally protected Mexican wolves.

I'm sure there was an episode of Captain Planet that dealt with this.

[Fist of Etiquette]

The Department of Justice has a policy dating back to the '90s...

So they'll slavishly follow 20-year-old internal policies but wantonly eschew 225-year-old law of the land. At least it's something.

[Austrian Anarchy]

Yea, but the stuff you are talking about is over 100 years old and nobody talks that way anymore.

[PS]

The Department of Justice has a policy dating back to the '90s where they will not prosecute somebody for killing an endangered animal unless they are sure the offender knew it was protected.

Prosecuting people for what they were thinking when they committed a crime is only valid when it's a hate crime.

[Tim]

Bear? I thought it was a woodchuck with a glandular problem.

[A Serious Man]

Mexican wolf? I thought it was a Mexican coyote smuggling people over here to take our good American jobs!

[wareagle]

stealing food from American wolves; replacing them as hunters.

[Generic Stranger]

No, no, you say "It was comin' right for me!"

[Aresen]

Activists and federal wildlife managers, however, believe the rule is being used as an excuse for hunters to play dumb.

I am sure it is.

But if you insist on raising it to a felony offence and taking intention out of it, then you are going to have to prosecute an airline pilot when a whooper gets sucked into the engine.

[Virginian]

That's the point. It's a religious thing for them.

[The Late P Brooks]

"Did you know what kind of bear it was at the time?"

"Yes. The big-enough-to-eat-me kind."

[tarran]

I would be very unsurprised if this isn't yet another one of those frenemy lawsuits where the regulators collude with people who are suing them in order to get a court order directing the regulators to do what the regulators wanted to all along.

[Scott S.]

The comments from the Fish and Wildlife folks in the full story back up the idea.

[Tman]

Of course, ask environmentalist groups about Wind Farms killing endangered birds and you hear nary a...........peep..

[Hyperion]

The birds were killed with good intentions.

[BakedPenguin]

True men don't kill coyotes.

[Generic Stranger]

Even if they're killing your calves and lambs?

Coyotes, though, are very adaptable. They're one of the few species of predators that seem to be able to completely resist our attempts to wipe them out. They change their breeding behavior based on their population density, so when there aren't quite as many of them they start breeding like rabbits. The result is they always have a fairly constant population.

[owen]

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