Federal Forest Violations Tickets

.....sometimes, the tickets written by Forest service LEO's or Conservation Agents are written for such petty violations, with a small fine, that they are not worth fighting in court.

And I think therein lies the reason for them writing this type of ticket.

The citation may be based on such shaky grounds, that it would never stand up in court, BUT, if the fine is small enough, the defendent will probably not contest it.

Think about it.

You miss a couple of days of work, hiring and talking to an attorney. At this point, you already have several hundred dollars invested, in lost work, and attorney's fees.
After preparation, you go to court. But, you STILL stand a chance of losing and paying a fine and costs. (Having a lawyer does not guarantee that you will be acquitted.)
If you lose, you will think to yourself, "I should have just paid the fine and costs, and been done with it. It would have been a lot cheaper."
Your friends will say, "You should have just paid the fine and costs. It would have been a lot cheaper!!"

If you don't fight the ticket, though, they will have won by default. Not because they had a good, solid case, but because you could not afford to fight it.

Again, I think that is the reason a lot of tickets are written. It will be expensive enough to feel it, but cheap enough that you can't afford to fight it.
 
It doesnt matter if they are county, state or federal, they are all LEO and all of them enforce the same laws. I have seen county sheriff in the hills as well as forest service. I personally dont mind, I have nothing to hide. As it was stated "didn't like the idea of off-roaders exploring the back-country trails in trucks with tires larger than the forest workers egos." If these were trails not roads then they had no business being on them and got what they deserved, that is exactly what gets a lot of areas closed down.
 
reb, I understand what you're saying and agree to a certain extent. My feelings have always been that decent people deserve a break. Hard working tax paying folks don't always warrant a ticket. If there is anyway possible these are the people who deserve some consideration and don't need an extra hassle in their busy lives. They're the backbone of society and are carrying their weight and more. The criminal element, the ones who have the time to find trouble because they don't have a JOB and aren't contributing to society get no breaks from me. They are a total waste and a drain on the rest of society which is struggling to keep their heads above water.

One other point, all law enforcement doesn't enforce the same laws. If you run a stoplight in Roy, Utah, an FBI agent can't write you a ticket for it. We pay the FBI to give their attention to different issues. I work for a Sheriff's Department. We don't work much traffic. We leave that for the Highway Patrol, that's their reason for being, that's what they get paid for and we expect that job to be done by them. Missouri doesn't have a State Police, the Sheriff's are the topdogs within their respective counties. We work narcotics, robberies, assualts, burglaries, auto thefts, property thefts, sexual crimes, crimes against seniors and children, rural patrol, maintain the county jail, security in the courthouse, serve civil process papers, transport prisoners, ect... We supply back-up and investigative assitance to the local muni's, Highway Patrol, and various federal authorities. That includes our county State Conservation Agent who was assualted by poachers a few years ago and our people worked the case and brought the two thugs to a productive trial. That's what we get paid for by the good people of our county. While we may patrol some of the backcountry forest and State Conservation Areas we're looking for meth cooks, thugs stealing or damaging vehicles, marijuana growers, ect... If a deputy rolls up on a poacher with an illegal deer/turkey or whatever, he'll certainly take action and can write the same citation as the Conservation Agent. But poaching wouldn't be our primary reason for being there. That's what we expect of the Conservation Agent. One of our deputies certainly isn't going to write you a ticket for not having a seatbelt on while driving down a Forest Service or State Conservation gravel road. If our guys were working traffic in a local town, that is counter productive, the local city officers get paid for that. While we can do that and write the ticket on state charges, our time is better spent elsewhere. And that was the point I was trying to make about the FS Officer. If he wants to write speeding tickets, then quit the Forest Service and go to work for the Highway Patrol. A friend of mine who works for the Missouri Highway Patrol was assinged to a very rural county and was helping the small town local officers work some dope cases. He was told by his captain that if he wanted to work dope cases to quit the Patrol and go to work for the Sheriff's or DEA! We currently have three former HP officers working for us now. (Sorry, that's off topic and a ramble) That's my view on the subject, respectfully IMHO.
 
In addition to agreeing with most of what has been said here, I would suggest that you go to the local office of the Forest Service and ask to see the regulation that you supposedly violated. If it is not clear that what you did was a violation complain to that idiots boss. Keep being a pain in the you-know-what. Eventually they will do something about that moron (at the least take his ticket book away from him). I have only had one run in with a Forest Service employee and that was about a campground that was being administred by a civilian contractor. It toke a year but it was finially corrected the way it should have been (guess the F S didn't like meeting his new supervisor for an inspection and then having to explain certain thing that just were not supposed to be done that way).
 
A few years ago I got stopped by a forest service employee ( not LEO) and was written a ticket for hunting at night on public land. The problem was that as per the rule book I was allowed to hunt there. I tried to explain this but he was having none of it. I went back to the office the next morning and asked to speak with a supervisor. That was the end of that. I got an apology and was on my way. May not be so easy in this case but some of these laws are vague and open themselves for an idiot to interpret them completely wrong.
 
I am not sure, Jeremy, but you may have just set the record for a thread resurrection. Is an interesting topic though.
 
Holy crap I don't even know how I got to a thread that old mist have been searching something else and come across it
 
Unless the law has changed,(i haven't looked in years) hunting or shooting on any national forest is up to the acting forest supervisor of that national forest.
 


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