Sorry you chose not to be represented by a lawyer. I think you could have beat the charge with good representation.
Any further explanation as to why the judge refused to accept your plea agreement?
As for what the jury said:
Quote:
... Talking to the jury after the trial I found out that checking in and drawing of the permit was the states best evidence in proving I was hunting.
So, they thought you were hunting continuously from the time you arrived until you left the WMA just because you checked in and picked up a permit that gave you permission to hunt? All of them agreed to that?
[Edit: to address your following statement.]
Quote:
... Even though hard to swallow I will accept it that I was in the wrong.
I don't agree that you were in the wrong. I haven't found Alabama case law to support that opinion, but I did find case law in Arkansas that proved some young people were not in the wrong after they were charged with road hunting. It turned out that their state was wrong after they continued to fight for what was right:
Quote:
ARKANSAS GAME AND FISH COMMISSION v. MURDERS ARKANSAS GAME AND FISH COMMISSION, Appellant, v. Nelson Murders, Jr., Roland Bates, Judy Pickering, Roy Pickering, Dean Meredith, Verdell Meredith, and Darrell Bratton, Appellees. No. 96-338. -- March 03, 1997
... However, while we have said that t he Commission has broad discretion in carrying out its powers, see Chaffin v. Ark. Game & Fish Comm'n, 296 Ark. 431, 757 S.W.2d 950 (1988), its discretion is not unfettered. The Commission's power to regulate the manner of taking game certainly does not translate into a general power to regulate the general possession of all firearms on city, county, state, or federally maintained roads or rights-of-way. An overbroad statute is one that is designed to punish conduct which the state may rightfully punish, but which includes within its sweep constitutionally protected conduct. McDougal v. State, 324 Ark. 354, 359-360, 922 S.W.2d 323 (1996), citing 4 R. Rotunda & J. Novak, Treatise on Constitutional Law, § 20.8 (2d ed. 1992). The Commission's rule, as amended, essentially shifts the burden to non-hunters who possess loaded or uncased firearms on city, county, state, or federally maintained roads or rights-of-way, to prove that he or she is not engaged in the prohibited act of road hunting. When examining amended rule 18.04, we conclude that it may include within its sweep innocent and legitimate conduct. For example, it is an affirmative defense to the charge of carrying a weapon that the person charged was carrying the weapon upon a journey. See Ark.Code Ann. § 5-73-120(c)(4) (Supp.1995). The amended rule is thus overbroad, and exceeds the Commission's authority granted under Amendment 35 to regulate the manner of taking game. Because we agree with the trial court that amended rule 18.04 is unconstitutionally overbroad, it is unnecessary for us to reach the Commission's remaining arguments on appeal. Based upon the foregoing, the decision of the trial court is affirmed.
Our DCNR also has a constitutionally overbroad defintion of hunting. You are a victim of that overbroad defintion. You were not in the wrong. Our state is in the wrong just as Arkansas was in the wrong.
