Poached Bulls in the Blues

[hunting4sanity]

I really hope there's more to the punishments than is revealed in that FB version.  It almost seems the message is "please don't poach, but if you must, we'll work with you anyway."  The crime and the punishment don't match.

[JWEBB]

What a bunch of BS. With a punishment that light, I can assure you that they will be doing the same thing again if they haven't already.   

[JLS]

Maybe you guys should go back and read the fine print.  For Washington, those are pretty good sentences.

[Humptulips]

Maybe you guys should go back and read the fine print.  For Washington, those are pretty good sentences.

You may well be right and therein lies the problem. I cannot imagine how 10 days home detention is much of a deterrent for poachers and they wasted all the meat. $8000 a piece sounds like a lot but many would pay that for the chance at a big bull.
Also I once waited for a couple thousand in restitution from three criminals and it took 15 years to be paid so these guys can spread that fine out over a lot of years unless they want off probation which is only two years. :bash:l No mention of license suspension either. :bash

[Firedogg]

  Sounds like a good time to start a letter writing campaign to the prosecutors office. It's more like they cut the deal so the prosecutor wouldn't have to do his real job... "Prosecute".

[Curly]

Looks like another example of why we need mandatory minimum penalties set so that these idiot judges and prosecutors can't let these scum off with slaps on the wrist.

[Bean Counter]

I appreciate your frustration,  Curly.   Nevertheless,  I feel mandatory minimums are a bad idea unless the crime is particularly heinous,  such as treason,  rape,  murder,  [voting Democrat], etc.  As much as I appreciate narcotics being illegal,  I think those stiff mandatory sentencing guidelines are a big factor in our overcrowded prisons.  At the same time I am sympathetic to the notion that the war on drugs has been successful insofar as reducing inner city crime.

Better strategy to not elect d-bag judges and prostitutors 

[Curly]

It's a better strategy but isn't realistic.  You realize how many people I vote for ever get elected? If i am lucky maybe one person I vote for in each election will get elected.   And I think this poaching case was particularly heinous. 

[bobdog86]

Since JLS read the fine print, did it say anything about license suspensions? And if the sentences are considered "pretty good" then there lies the problem. My  :two cents: is they are pathetic.

[bigtex]

So they assessed the mandatory civil penalties and suspended those also  . Bigtex can you clarify?  Very sad!  I thought the civil penalties were a separate deal from the criminal proceeding. 

The mandatory civil fine is the $12,000 which was split between the two at $6,000 each. The additional $2,000 were criminal fines which were not suspended.

This sounds terrible, but this is actually a better prosecution then what most have been getting. The trend lately in WA is to suspend ALL of the criminal penalties and simply hand down the civil penalty which is mandatory. So if that were to happen here it would be the $6,000 fine.

I am glad the post showed what the possible penalty is, and how much of that was not suspended and actually handed down. It shows that penalties for fish and wildlife penalties are stiff, they just aren't handed down.

[netcoyote]

I appreciate your frustration,  Curly.   Nevertheless,  I feel mandatory minimums are a bad idea unless the crime is particularly heinous,  such as treason,  rape,  murder,  [voting Democrat], etc.  As much as I appreciate narcotics being illegal,  I think those stiff mandatory sentencing guidelines are a big factor in our overcrowded prisons. At the same time I am sympathetic to the notion that the war on drugs has been successful insofar as reducing inner city crime.

Better strategy to not elect d-bag judges and prostitutors 

Could it be that the "stiff mandatory sentences" lead to the low crime rate that we have been experiencing? Overcrowded prisons are another issue but if you lock the bad guys up, they are not out continuing their criminal activity.

[link]

That prosecutor is a piece of work. She's bragging about a big court "win" thats going to show potential poachers that if they get caught, they'll be in a heap of trouble, criminally and financially. This is all good until you see that nearly all of the fines and jail time were suspended. WTF!? Yea, that'l show em. I would bet if the license suspension was up to the courts, they would have suspended that penalty too.

[Bean Counter]

I appreciate your frustration,  Curly.   Nevertheless,  I feel mandatory minimums are a bad idea unless the crime is particularly heinous,  such as treason,  rape,  murder,  [voting Democrat], etc.  As much as I appreciate narcotics being illegal,  I think those stiff mandatory sentencing guidelines are a big factor in our overcrowded prisons. At the same time I am sympathetic to the notion that the war on drugs has been successful insofar as reducing inner city crime.

Better strategy to not elect d-bag judges and prostitutors 

Could it be that the "stiff mandatory sentences" lead to the low crime rate that we have been experiencing? Overcrowded prisons are another issue but if you lock the bad guys up, they are not out continuing their criminal activity.

Yes, that's why I wrote the next sentence after the one you bolded 

To reiterate: the first priority of incarceration is to protect the public from offenders. The second priority is to punish the offender for past transgressions. Still a third yet distant priority is the rehabilitation of the offender, which should never attempt to come at the expense of the first two, which it is not mutually exclusive of. 

[LeviD1]

The fine for poaching say big game animals regardless of trophy class or not should be like $25,000 per animal no if ands or buts. That way I'm not paying for another idiot in prison and its more harsh to make people consider not doing it a lot more. Oh and lose all future hunting and fishing privileges.

[HUNTINCOUPLE]

Sure seems like another slap on the wrist penalty......

They haven't yet had their day in court, so we don't know if it will be a "slap on the wrist" or not.

From what the potential maximum penalties could be for each charge, it appears to me that the total in fines and jail time could be substantial, not to mention the loss of the right to possess firearms and the right to hunt.

Looks like another slap on the wrist again, and again, and again..... Seems the state is promoting poaching?