Originally posted by LittleBen:
le but someone suggested CO's don't need warrants. Thats simply not true. The fourth amendment provides protection from unwarrented searches. Yes, some exceptions exist, but they would not apply to CO's differntly than other officers. Although I would be interested if there is actual evidence to the contrary (article or other source not generalized experience)
Mon Mar 5, 2012, 09:01 PM USA/ET
Source: San Francisco Chronicle
The U.S. Supreme Court today granted California game wardens the authority to stop and question motorists
.The justices denied review of a California Supreme Court ruling in June that upheld the vehicle stops without requiring a warrant or evidence of lawbreaking.
All a warden needs to initiate such a stop is knowledge that the person or persons in the vehicle have been hunting or fishing. As long as the wardens’ demands are limited to items directly related to fishing and hunting, then the stop and any subsequent search is permissible, the court said.
The court’s ruling stems from a 2007 case in which a game warden stopped an angler three blocks from a San Diego public fishing pier and discovered the illegal take of a spiny lobster. The warden had been observing the pier through a telescope from a distance of 200 yards (so as not to be detected) when he saw Bouhn Maikhio pull something out of the water with a hand line and put it in a black bag.
Although the warden could not tell what Maikhio had caught and later admitted he did not have reason, at that point, to suspect a law had been broken, he pursued Maikhio after watching him leave the pier, get in his car, and exit the parking lot. As the warden put it, he wanted to “make sure that [Maikhio] was in compliance with the California fishing law and regulations.”
Lapin said, game wardens "really couldn't be doing their job" without the power to detain people who have recently been hunting or fishing, activities that rarely show outward evidence of lawbreaking.
Lapin said, game wardens "really couldn't be doing their job" without the power to detain people who have recently been hunting or fishing, activities that rarely show outward evidence of lawbreaking.
In its decision, the court said the inconvenience of such stops, when compared to the state’s need to protect wildlife for future enjoyment, is minor. The court also said hunters and anglers give up some measure of their Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure because hunting and fishing regulations would be “impossible to adequately enforce if a game warden could stop…only those anglers and hunters who the warden reasonably suspected had violated the fish and game law.”
The laws in many U.S. states allow game wardens to conduct certain types of searches with or without search warrants. The law in Louisiana for instance states in part "...any commissioned wildlife agent may visit, inspect, and examine, with or without [a] search warrant, records, any cold storage plant, warehouse, boat, store, car, conveyance, automobile or other vehicle, airplane or other aircraft, basket or other receptacle, or any place of deposit for wild birds, wild quadrupeds, fish or other aquatic life or any parts thereof whenever there is probable cause to believe that a violation has occurred. Commissioned wildlife agents are authorized to visit or inspect at frequent intervals without the need of search warrants, records, cold storage plants, bait stands, warehouses, public restaurants, public and private markets, stores, and places where wild birds, game quadrupeds, fish, or other aquatic life or any parts therof may be kept and offered for sale, for the purpose of ascertaining whether any laws or regulations under the jurisdiction of the department have been violated...."[4] The laws in other states may grant more or less search and seizure authority. These exceptions granted to game wardens are still considered to fall within the constitutional limits of search and seizure as outlined in the U.S Constitution.
Or just carry your small game liscence know your laws and go stumping
Topic: Being checked while stumping (Read 1031 times)
