OTish Court case involving turtles and toads and cocaine

Jury acquits Erie resident of illegal possessions (turtles, toads and
cocaine)
By Victoria A.F. Camron
The Daily Times-Call

BOULDER - An Erie man who collects turtles and toads was
acquitted Tuesday of illegally possessing wildlife and cocaine...
Colorado law says one person cannot have more than four ornate box
turtles and four Woodhouse's toads. Simpson argued his client did not
know having five turtles and 19 frogs - four of which were in the
window well - was more than the law allows...
(The key to the acquittals, Simpson said, was the state's inability
to link Vandermeer with a pen casing that contained cocaine
residue.)

The question here is, do you know how many turtles and toads you can
have??
And what about frogs? How many frogs can you have?
(I expect you know that having cocaine about *is* illegal...
And you better not be licking those toads.)

Find the whole story here
http://ihmp.net/@/yt
or
http://www.longmontfyi.com/region-story.asp?id=698

kathy

kathy wrote:

Jury acquits Erie resident of illegal possessions (turtles, toads and
cocaine)
By Victoria A.F. Camron
The Daily Times-Call

BOULDER - An Erie man who collects turtles and toads was
acquitted Tuesday of illegally possessing wildlife and cocaine...
Colorado law says one person cannot have more than four ornate box
turtles and four Woodhouse's toads. Simpson argued his client did not
know having five turtles and 19 frogs - four of which were in the
window well - was more than the law allows...
(The key to the acquittals, Simpson said, was the state's inability
to link Vandermeer with a pen casing that contained cocaine
residue.)

Very odd. I can't see how failure to prove cocaine possession gets him off
the wildlife possession charge, and ignorance of the law has never been an
acceptable excuse. Surely, though, he wasn't "in possession" of those 4
toads in the window well. That's where toads go!

If you keep animals, it's always your responsibility to find out how many
your local jurisdiction will allow you to keep, so I don't have much
sympathy.
--
derek

But who would have expected toads??

kathy

I'm wondering why he needs cocaine when he has that many
toads...

kathy wrote:

But who would have expected toads??

kathy

Derek Broughton wrote:
Very odd. I can't see how failure to prove cocaine possession gets him off
the wildlife possession charge, and ignorance of the law has never been an
acceptable excuse. Surely, though, he wasn't "in possession" of those 4
toads in the window well. That's where toads go!

More than likely, the animal possession charge was rendered to try to get
evidence on the coccaine possession charge. It would not be the first time
that law enforcement has taken minor law infractions and used it to try to
get evidence or confessions. Perhaps it started out as wildlife officials
trying to cut down on poaching, but usually when it's a kid collecting
wildlife as it sounds like it might have been in this case, they'll go to
educational measures, not court measures. I feel there's more to this
story than the writeup is saying... some reason why officials went to
court in the first place, such as prior suspecions of drug dealing or
such.

If you keep animals, it's always your responsibility to find out how many
your local jurisdiction will allow you to keep, so I don't have much
sympathy.

The laws in such cases are not always obvious. Nor do people always think
about the fact that the toad or turtle found in their "backyard" might
actually be regulated. Even if they do think about it, they might not know
the agency responsible. I looked at the wildlife commission website based
on the hints given in the article, but others might think to ask the city
animal control, which may or may not point them in the right direction
(they're more familar with domestic and nuissance animal laws I've found).
Even knowing the correct agency, it took me about 30 minutes of searching
the Colorado Wildlife website to find a link to the laws and regulations
buried under the Wildlife Commission site:

http://wildlife.state.co.us/regulations/

Looks like they're using Chapter 10 as the law in this case. The "4
animal" limit was per capture with a dozen allowed in aggregate in
captivity for the toads under the "Protected Wildlife" provisions. I
believe the box turtle is listed under this regulation too as the species
matches what is later refered to as "ornate box turtle" even though the
common name listed is not consistent. If true, this then begs the question
of why they were prosecuted for having only 5 turtles at home as that was
well under the dozen allowed by that regulation. Perhaps the issue the
officials had was lack of permit for collecting nongame species, but
again, when there's an 8 yr old in the picture, it should have been
handled as an educational issue and perhaps a fine. I still think there's
more to this story than what was presented.

Cichlidiot wrote I still think there's more to
this story than what was presented

I agree with you there.

I also searched our state wildlife page and our city's
page on animals and after a half an hour I gave up.

I did call our state Fish and Wildlife once about collecting
from the wild for a pond.
I got bounced all over the state, talked to really interesting people
about all sort of things but finally was told that they, the state, are
not interested in a 10-yr-old kid, a jar and a couple tadpoles or frogs
or whatever,
what they are interested in is people collecting stuff to turn a profit
and taking great amounts of whatever they are collecting as they
can do significant damage.

Moral of that story is you can never go wrong
accompanied in life by a ten-year-old :-)

kathy

On or about 3 Mar 2005 09:21:52 -0800, "kathy" wrote
something like:

But who would have expected toads??

kathy

We never expected the inquisition. . .
--
Crashj

Confess! Confess! Confess!
(and hand over your toads)

kathy

kathy wrote:

Confess! Confess! Confess!
(and hand over your toads)

Now I think you're getting your sketches mixed up.

"Your money or your lupines"...
--
derek

Derek wrote Now I think you're getting your sketches mixed up

Story of my life.
I blame it on the teenagers.

kathy