OREGON FISH AND WILDLIFE COMMISSION
Trio challenge possible hunting suspension
Statesman Journal
May 10, 2006
Three Oregon men facing potential suspensions of their hunting
privileges because of game violations they committed in Idaho have
decided to go at least one more round with the state.
Jesse Wm. Barton, a Salem lawyer, has filed a "notice of exceptions"
on behalf of the three -- Kyle C. Cordano of Tualatin and Andre and
Nicholas Larrison of Oregon City -- that will be heard Friday in Burns
at the May meeting of the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission.
Oregon is one of 20 states that have mutual agreements to suspend
licenses and tags for fishing and hunting violations.
That means loss of privileges in one means suspension in all.
Oregon was the first state to join the Wildlife Violators compact in
1989, and one of the last to implement it.
Cordano and the Larrisons are the first case to be pursued under the
compact.
And that's the crux of Barton's 18-page notice of exceptions: Oregon
is not part of the compact because it never enforced it.
And that if the compact is in force in Oregon, the violations should
carry this state's penalties, not Idaho's.
The three received three-year suspensions Nov. 22, 2004, in Idaho for
using a light after legal shooting hours to shoot at a game-enforcement
decoy.
Barton argues, in part, that the penalty in Oregon for similar
violations is a two-year suspension, so the longest they could lose
their license-and-tag privileges should be until Nov. 22 of this year,
not the 2007 imposed in Idaho.
"It's the same arguments that they had in front of the administrative
law judge," said Ron Anglin, the Wildlife Division administrator for the
Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.
That judge, Michael Andrew Francis, sitting in Portland, on March 21
issued an opinion supporting Oregon's contention that the three should
be suspended for the same time period as in Idaho.
Commissioners are scheduled to vote Friday on whether to impose the
suspensions.
If they vote to enforce the compact, the three have another legal
avenue if they decide to continue the fight: the Oregon Court of
Appeals.
The commission's vote cuts deeper than whether three Oregonians lose
hunting privileges for a year and a half.
It's the test case for full implementation of the provisions of the
compact.
And according to Oregon State Police figures, almost 900 Oregon
residents suspended in-state could face a similar fate in the other 19
compact-member states.
And nearly 4,000 people in the other 19 states under suspension could
have their out-of-state hunting and/or fishing privileges revoked in
Oregon.
Also Thursday, commissioners will tour a sage grouse mating dance
site and Malheur Lake, Krumbo Reservoir and the edge of Steens Mountain
with information presentations at each stop.
