Posted on 01/10/2009 10:36:44 AM PST by marktwain
The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources has a simple, blunt message for hunters in Wisconsin: When a DNR warden asks you to give up your legal firearm, do so, plain and simple, no matter what.
What's more, that goes for all citizens, the agency has asserted. Citizens with firearms, the DNR argues, should always do exactly what law enforcement officers tell them to do, regardless of the circumstances of the situation.
To which one former hunter education instructor for the department has an equally simple and blunt response: The agency's directive is unconstitutional, plain and simple, and citizens don't have to hand over their firearms without any probable cause.
That viewpoint is the reason Mark Palan, the owner of Palan's Outpost Sporting Goods in Iowa County, has the word 'former' attached to his title. After 14 years as a volunteer instructor, the DNR cast him out last year for, in the agency's words, misrepresenting agency standards to hunter education students.
The issue promises to affect many more people than hunters in the coming year. In fact, the DNR's foray into gun rights issues on the Palan matter represents just one cloud in a growing storm over what authority law enforcement officers actually have to seize openly carried but legal firearms, whether it's from a hunter in the field or a citizen on the street.
Wisconsin is ostensibly an open-carry state; the media debate thus far has focused on whether to extend so-called carrying rights to concealed weapons.
But the latter could soon be yesterday's news; the DNR's excommunication of Palan, and its subsequent articulation of a broad grant of power for law enforcement to confiscate legal firearms, has suddenly called the legitimacy and reality of open carry itself into question.
Just as important, along with an ongoing non-DNR case in West Allis, the agency's expression of support for the ability of police to take away legal firearms upon simple command has in effect opened the door for a de facto state policy for all law enforcement.
The question is, is it constitutional, or, as Palan contends, does the DNR's position characterize an unconstitutional breach of a citizen's Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable search and seizure?
Simply asked, can law enforcement take a person's legally carried firearm without any probable cause that a crime is being committed? Must a hunter in the field surrender his firearm just because a conservation warden tells him to?
Palan's encounter
To Palan, the answer is no.
"For 14 years, I've been teaching my students the same thing, over and over and over," Palan told The Lakeland Times.
The first thing he teaches is, he said, when a person is on private property and a warden stops and asks to see a license, the first thing to do is ask the warden for his credentials. The second thing, Palan said, is to boot the warden off the property because he's trespassing.
"And when they start throwing their weight around, you just reach in your pocket and dial 911 and have the police come out and have them removed," he said.
Being approached by a warden on public land is different, Palan said.
"If you are on public ground and a warden stops you and wants to see your license, you should ask him for his credentials, then you show him your license," he said. "And when he says, give me your gun, you show him your gun. You set it down on the ground or you can hand it to him. But your right is that you do not have to give him your gun. And if you set it down on the ground and he picks it up, now he's taken your gun without your permission. I've been teaching that for 14 years."
But, Palan said, his instruction collided with DNR attitudes last March when a local conservation warden lectured at one of his classes and discovered what Palan was teaching.
A confrontation ensued, Palan recalls, both in the class that night and a few days later in his store, and Palan says the DNR gave him a choice - either admit to the class that what he had been teaching was wrong, or get kicked out.
Palan got kicked out.
For the record
DNR documents corroborate Palan's version of events.
In an April 28, 2008, letter, DNR hunter education administrator Timothy Lawhern told Palan he was being ousted as a DNR instructor for a variety of reasons, including Palan's alleged refusal to abide by a program instructor code of conduct, his refusal to accept constructive criticism from local conservation warden Joe Frost, and his refusal to teach the program as the DNR wanted.
The removal applied to all recreational safety programs, Lawhern stated, boater education as well as snowmobile education, ATV education as well as hunter education and bow hunter education.
"You have trained many hunter education graduates contrary to our program standards of how to handle a firearm when approached by a law enforcement officer," Lawhern wrote. "This training has now placed those students in a potentially dangerous attitude which could have catastrophic results for themselves and members of the law enforcement community."
Palan certainly had the right to disagree with the DNR's approach, Law- hern added, but that did not give him any authority to teach one of their programs contrary to the agency's guidelines.
"You may disagree with our required training as you have every right to do so," Lawhern wrote. "However, you have no authority to teach our program contrary to our guidelines."
Lawhern followed his April 28 letter to Palan with a May 19, 2008, missive to Palan's former students. That letter instructed them to always follow the commands of a law enforcement officer, no matter the circumstance and even if it meant giving the officer the firearm.
"It has come to our attention that a portion of the training you received while taking the Department of Natural Resources Hunter Education Course in Iowa County was not in compliance with our program policies," Lawhern began. ". . . . The portion of the training I need to clarify for you is what is expected of citizens when they are contacted by a law enforcement officer."
Lawhern didn't name Palan but said the "instructor" had misrepresented the DNR's program training standards regarding such contacts.
"What you should have been taught was to maintain good muzzle control and then follow the instructions of the law enforcement officer," Lawhern wrote. "This will vary depending on what type of contact it is, where it is taking place, the circumstances behind the contact, the officer's intuition or concern about safety and your demeanor during the contact."
What the DNR teaches in its hunter education program must carry over to everyday real-life situations, Lawhern continued.
"That is why it is important to understand that law enforcement communities, regardless of their branch of service (i.e. state trooper, county deputy, municipal police, conservation warden, etc.), have expectations that their instructions will be followed," he wrote. "This is for your safety, the safety of the officer as well as any other citizens that might be nearby."
For the most part, Lawhern wrote, wardens were simply checking for legal firearms for the game being pursued, magazine capacity (waterfowl hunting), and legal ammunition types - all the while maintaining a safe environment.
Examples of instructions a person might receive during a hunting situation might include the following, Lawhern stated: "Please open the action of your firearm"; "Would you mind safely unloading your firearm"; "You may place your firearm safely against that tree until we are finished"; "I'll hold your firearm while you check for your license"; "Allow me to check your magazine for a plug while you find your license."
Listening to law enforcement, no matter what, was the proper course of action, he wrote.
"Your cooperation with law enforcement is vital no matter what the situation is," Lawhern concluded. "To act any other way could result in a tragedy easily avoided by simply following their instructions."
The letter stunned Palan.
"They took the time and the taxpayer dollars to send a letter to every student that I've taught in 14 years, telling them that they were misrepresented by an Iowa county instructor," he said.
But the former instructor said he was more interested in what the letter did not say.
"Now what is expected of citizens?" he asked. "It doesn't say here that the law says that you will hand over your firearm."
To the next level
Even after removing Palan as an instructor, Lawhern wasn't content to leave the issue alone. He also addressed it in the April 2008 issue of the Wisconsin Hunter Education newsletter, which is distributed to hunter education instructors.
In the article, entitled "When a Warden Approaches, What Do I Do with my Gun," he expanded the scope of authority to include all law enforcement and all citizens. In so doing, he put the DNR on a collision course with the state's open-carry law.
"About 8 years ago the International Hunter Education Association raised the question about what is being taught in hunter education courses relative to how hunters should handle their firearms during license checks in the field," Lawhern wrote. "The aftermath of the debate was that a survey should be done within the law enforcement community to determine what they expected as appropriate behavior. The debate caused us to ask all manner of law enforcement since what we teach we wanted to meet every cop, state trooper, county deputy or municipal officer's expectations."
Law enforcement wanted just two things, he said of the survey's results. One was to maintain good muzzle control. The other was to "do exactly what the officer tells you to do."
"This may seem a bit odd as it's a standard that could be different from one officer to the next or different when situations are different," Lawhern wrote. "The officers instructions can and will vary depending on the situation."
Lawhern them moved on to address the likely response of law enforcement in general when officers see someone openly carrying a firearm, which, again, is not illegal per se in Wisconsin.
"Note that the officer on the street doesn't expect to see firearms openly exposed," he wrote. "In most cases when they do see a firearm, they draw theirs and tell the person 'Let me see your hands! Don't move!' In some cases they yell, 'Put the gun down,' or "Drop the gun!'"
Similarly, he stated, there would be times when a warden would ask a hunter to put down a gun or unload it or hand it to the warden.
"The point is, we must be teaching our students to follow the officer's instructions," he concluded.
To Lawhern, then, the mere presence of a firearm was reason enough for the police to give commands that must be obeyed, in addition to launching preliminary use-of-deadly force tactics such as drawing weapons.
Mystified at that reasoning, Palan sought out a legislative viewpoint, asking his state senator, Dale Schultz (R-Richland Center), whether a DNR warden in fact possessed any authority to take custody of a legal firearm, absent any probable cause.
Schultz retrieved an opinion from a senior staff attorney for the Wisconsin Legislative Council. The answer was vague, at best. Still, the attorney, Mark Patronsky, could find no blanket authority, except that arising from certain specifically defined statutory reasons.
"Within the scope of the constitutional prohibition of unreasonable searches and seizures, the courts have carved out authorization for law enforcement officers (such as conservation wardens) to take control of a firearm to protect the safety of the law enforcement officer," Patronsky wrote. "The officer, after further investigation and determination of a probable cause, may proceed to arrest the individual and seize the firearm."
Other situations in which a firearm might be seized included violations of various ammunitions and transporting regulations or the creation of a public nuisance.
The bottom line was, though, police needed some reason for the seizure.
"The statutes and administrative rules described in this memorandum, as well as a variety of other statutes and rules, do allow a warden to take a person's firearm for various reasons," he wrote.
Palan says that means a warden simply can't take a firearm without some probable cause.
"Nowhere in the hunters' education manual, nowhere in the instructors manual, nowhere in any state statutes that I can find, does it say you must hand over your firearm," he said. "Nowhere."
Real-life impact
One practical effect of Lawhern's expansive grant of confiscatory powers to police, not to mention their supposed prerogative to draw their weapons on gun-carrying citizens, would be a practical evisceration of Wisconsin's open carry status.
That status is already murky.
On the one hand, despite Lawhern's drawn-gun scenario, the heads of multiple Wisconsin law enforcement agencies told The Lakeland Times their officers would not act in the manner Lawhern described upon merely seeing someone with a gun. They acknowledged the legality of open carry.
In addition, the Use of Deadly Force policy of the Oneida County Sheriff's Department would seem to prohibit such conduct, without some other probable cause or suspicion.
"In any use of force decision, the officer must be certain that he or she has the right to make contact," the policy states. "The intervention must have legal beginning based upon articulable facts or circumstances. Officer presence can be based upon invitation, reasonable suspicion, community caretaker function, probable cause, exigent circumstances or other 'legal beginnings.'"
According to the policy, officer presence - which presumably could include a drawn gun - is the lowest level of use of force, but, the policy emphasizes, "an excessive or negative presence must be avoided or, if used, must be justified."
How could Lawhern's scenario be reconciled with such a policy? That could only logically occur if open-carry was by itself illegal, by definition constituting reasonable suspicion, probable cause, exigent circumstance or some other "legal beginning" that justified police contact and presence.
Then, too, both the state, under then attorney general Jim Doyle, and the Supreme Court recognized open-carry rights in State of Wisconsin v Hamdan, in which the High Court carved out a concealed weapon exemption for small storeowners.
The Department of Justice argued against the exemption, citing the ability of citizens to already possess and carry an open weapon: "The State argues that even under the strictest enforcement of the [concealed carry] statute, a person lawfully in possession of a firearm will always retain the ability to keep the firearm in the open - holding the weapon in the open, keeping the weapon in a visible holster, displaying the weapon on the wall, or otherwise placing the weapon in plain view," the court stated in summing up the DOJ's brief.
In her dissent of the final decision, chief justice Shirley Abrahamson went even further.
"That is, [the law] does not prevent anyone from carrying a firearm for security, defense, hunting, recreation, or other lawful purposes," Abrahamson wrote. "Rather, it limits the manner of carrying weapons, by requiring that a weapon that is on a person or within a person's reach not be concealed. The gist of the offense is the concealment."
Then again
On the other hand, police have increasingly begun to cite those openly carrying firearms for disorderly conduct, which a September 2000 memorandum by the Legislative Reference Bureau warned could happen.
"Wisconsin law does not specifically prohibit the open carrying of loaded or unloaded firearms in public, but a person doing so may risk being arrested, and charged with disorderly conduct, on the grounds that the display threatens the public peace or safety," the brief stated.
If that's the case, then police departments and the DNR could effectively make open carry illegal by defining it as disorderly conduct from the get-go, making an end run around both the Supreme Court and the Legislature. Using the same logic, any law enforcement commands not obeyed could result in a disorderly conduct citation.
Until recently, those charged with disorderly conduct for carrying open firearms have not fought the issue. That changed last year.
In West Allis, in August, in a scenario eerily similar to the one Lawhern outlined, West Allis police drew their weapons and arrested Bruce Krause, who was wearing a holstered legal pistol while planting trees on his own property.
In a case that could finally clarify both police authority to seize firearms and the state's open carry law, Krause is fighting back, and a landmark U.S. Court of Appeals decision last month could be decisive in the outcome.
Those cases will be discussed in the next article.
Tsk, tsk, tsk...
I was referring to his quote, “From these cold hands.”
That is what he gets for haveing a name like Palin. Slammed, smeared, screwed and shafted.
His parents should have known better...
I am relying on the word of those who state it is an open carry state.
The person that is quoted in the article, is advocating LEOs be able to take any gun on a whim. That is against the current law in the state.
If you have not made any infraction, you have every right to maintain possession of your weapon should a LEO come in contact with you.
If you have made an infraction of the law, or you are wanted for something, I would of course state that you should surrender your weapon if the LEO asks for it.
Otherwise, the private citizen has as much right to be armed as the LEO does. And if the LEO thinks nothing of being armed, he should think nothing of the public being armed when they come into contact with one another.
If the member of the public is not supposed to be intimidated by an LEO being armed when they come in contact with him, the LEO should not be intimidated by a member of the public when coming in contact with them.
Both are allowed to openly carry a weapon. That is the law. Confiscation without cause should be illegal.
Do you disagree with that?
I know the article is red meat for a lot of people, but I'm skeptical.
First, this appears to be a controversy manufactured by the "instructor". While I know nothing about him but what's in the article, I was struck by the beginning of his statement.
To Palan, the answer is no."For 14 years, I've been teaching my students the same thing, over and over and over," Palan told The Lakeland Times.
The first thing he teaches is, he said, when a person is on private property and a warden stops and asks to see a license, the first thing to do is ask the warden for his credentials. The second thing, Palan said, is to boot the warden off the property because he's trespassing.
"And when they start throwing their weight around, you just reach in your pocket and dial 911 and have the police come out and have them removed," he said.
Being approached by a warden on public land is different, Palan said.
While I'm open to correction from informed members of the Wisconsin bar (legal not drinking), that's simply not true. Wardens have the right to enter private property to enforce the game laws, which includes licensing. It makes complete sense to ask to see the LEO's identification, subsequent to that refusing to produce your license should result in a well deserved citation for hunting without a license. Calling the Sheriff to have him cited for tresspass is absurd. It's entirely proper that this "instructor" is "former".
As to the surrender your weapons thing, color me very, very skeptical. While I've often criticized the DNR, I've no real problem with their employees. It's purely anecdotal, but the couple I've talked to, I've had one occasion where one did come on my property during gun season, confronting armed citizens, they tend to be nonconfrontational. I could be completely wrong, maybe there are wardens out there during hunting season aggressively confiscating hunters rifles, but I've never heard of it and the author hasn't provided any. A copy of the "directive" would have been nice.
Note my post 105. What Palin was teaching regarding wardens and private property is simply wrong and will cause his students to violate the law. In the absense of examples, or the directive, the idea that DNR wardens are wandering the state during hunting season is absurd. And the kind of absurdity that doesn't paint gunowners in a particularly good light.
Bad advice, wardens can enter private property to enforce the game laws at will. A student following his advice will end up with an expensive citation and probably a suspension of hunting privledges for several years. The police will not charge the warden with tresspassing, because he's not, though if the student makes a big enough scene, they'll probably arrest him for disturbing the peace.
They are in Wisconsin too, though the agency is a little loopy at times. As I noted in my last couple posts, I'm suspicious of the characterization of the non-disclosed "directive".
I’m not going to quarrel with you over it. I do have a very strong aversion to any government official being able to traipse across private property. I don’t care who they are. They can manage public property any way they see fit, but my land is my land. To hell with what they think about what I do on it. If someone is hunting on my property, it’s up to me to make sure they are operating within the law.
If were talking about activity of a legal nature concerning a felony, I of course understand the need for this. Otherwise I don’t.
I realize this will rub some people the wrong way, but I am a very very firm believer in personal property rights and exclusivity.
You may be right about what rights these government actors have. And if they do have the right to private property access, then I believe your assessment is probably correct. I sure don’t like it.
Why shouldn’t that guy have to have a warrant to step one foot on my property?
Fish & Game regulations typically limit the number of rounds you may carry loaded in your hunting firearm - since you have a "bag limit" - a restriction on the number of game animals you can legally take - there's no reason to have 30 rounds of ammo in your firearm unless you're poaching.
A lot of the regulations are like this - since they can't read your mind and know whether your intent is poaching or legal hunting, and since they usually can't catch anyone red-handed given the nature of the wilderness, they come up with concrete, specific restrictions that can be determined in a legalistic, black-and-white fashion, such as whether you have a plug in your magazine limiting the number of rounds it can accept.
I would say that the next 4 will get it done, or at the most , 8.
You’d be amazed at the sweeping authority Fish & Game wardens have. I’ve heard of cops, who lack probable cause to search a suspect vehicle with or without a warrant, call in their game warden buddies who have statutory authority to search for poached game without a warrant.
Actally the chain of command goes from the President to the Secretary of Defense directly to the commanders of the Unified Combatant Commands and thus bypasses the Joint Chiefs of Staff completely.
The Joint Chiefs are advisors to the President and nothing more.
The round in the chamber rule is ridiculous IMO. Every round in the chamber is not necessarily going to be fired at an animal. Trying to read people’s minds is a great way to justify stepping over the line. It’s unwarranted.
These government busy bodies, need to find something else to do with their “talents”.
You’ve touched on one of the glaring reasons why I judge the authority given to them, to be way over the top.
BTW, I don’t see a warden as a LEO. It was a mistake to ever go that route IMO.
I may be mistaken, but wasn’t that part of Clinton’s put 100,000 more police on the streets?
In some cases felonies are involved, poaching for example, however whether you or I agree with the law isn't the point. It is the law, and teaching students it isn't accomplishes nothing other than exposing them to legal risk.
I admit the access doesn't thrill me, but it would be difficult to enforce game laws without it. The likely alternative would be licensing of private property for hunting to be allowable, with a consent to enter. Maybe a better alternative in some ways, fees could be higher, but not much different from a practical point of view. The unlicensed property of non-hunters would be better protected, but since a hunter there would be evidence of a crime, wardens could enter anyway. I'm not sure there's a better solution than the current law. Anticipating the question from someone, underlying these laws is the fact that the wild animals being hunted are the property of the people of the State of Wisconsin, the landowner has no ownership rights at all.
Meant to include that I’m suspicious that this is a contrived controversy. DNR wardens don’t go around confiscating firearms.
No, but I've seen police chiefs (as seen on tv) more and more are wearing trendy General stars. That way they can strut and fret around like a real general without having to ever face a determined enemy and actually have gone through serious risk to their lives.
Wannabees.
He said a lot of things...
"So that this nation may long endure, I urge you to follow in the hallowed footsteps of the great disobedience of history that freed exiles, founded religions, defeated tyrants, and yes, in the hands of an aroused rabble in arms and a few great men."
"You who inherit the heavy privilege to serve in freedom's name. You who must brace for battle surely to come."
"I intend to dedicate my remaining time as president of the NRA to ensure that the Second Amendment is safe from Al Gore and all those who threaten it."
"A clear enunciation of these rights needs to be enshrined in the Constitution to guarantee that this basic right of law-abiding gun owners and sportsmen shall not be infringed upon by anti-gun public officials."
"Damn them! Damn them all to hell."
"Mr. Clinton, sir, America didn't trust you with our health care system. America didn't trust you with gays in the military. America doesn't trust you with our 21-year-old daughters, and we sure, Lord, don't trust you with our guns."
But most importantly:
"LET MY PEOPLE GO!!!"
Game wardens do have authority to go on private land to enforce the game and fish laws. They only have authority to enforce game and fish laws, so this is why they have a bit more leeway than other officers. They have full authority to enforce all the laws in State Parks. I recall an older warden saying that during prohibition, if a game warden found a car with a load of bootleg liquor, he always ignored it because it was none of his business.
However, wardens, I believe, are not allowed to trespass on private land unless they have a reason to enforce the game and fish laws there. This has always been a “grey area” in warden activity. The “training” that I got (wink, wink) was that a “good warden” could always find a reason to go onto private land, even if one was not obvious.
One warden instructor said that even though a warrant was legally required to search an automobile without permission, once he got out his pry bar and indicated that he would force open the trunk, he never failed to get permission to do so! Another warden told of how he thought it was a good idea to sneak into a person's boat house and search for illegal fish, because he was sure the guy was a violator, even though he did not have enough evidence for a warrant.
Judges often defer to the local game warden in matters of the game and fish laws. The was even one fellow who was convicted of an offense that did not exist, because the judge simply relied on the warden, who made a mistake in the law!
A few years ago, a zoning official went onto private property in Wisconsin, without permission, to determine if there were a zoning violation, and the zoning official was charged with trespassing, and convicted of it, so I am not so certain that a totally free hand for wardens to go on private property is absolutely legal.
If a warden is on private land investigating hunting or fishing, and has ascertained that the hunting or fishing that he is investigating is legal, I believe that it is then legal for the landowner to order him off of the property. I do not know of any test case of this, however.
Being a conservation warden in Wisconsin does not give a warden a blank check to trespass on private property at any time.
I treat all law enforcement with respect, because it is smart to do so, but my experience in the warden force in Wisconsin helped me to realize that it is foolish to put yourself at legal risk by trusting that peace officers always have your best interests in mind. Often they do not. Often they are in a bad mood, or need to impress the boss, or have an agenda of their own. You never know, so it is wise to be careful as well as respectful, and to realize that every encounter with a peach officer has an element of legal risk.
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