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time. Rather, in point of fact, the baiting issue has become more 

 exacerbated, due, unfortunately, to the twin prongs of unreasonable 

 administration of the regulations by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife 

 Service, Division of Law Enforcement, and the unyielding position 

 of the Federal courts, including U.S. attorneys, and a joint rush to 

 convict under the doctrine of strict liability in baiting cases. 



In my considered judgment, the time has truly come for Congress 

 to act. I laud the International Association of Fish and Wildlife 

 Agencies for their task force committee and their recommendations, 

 but it is quite clear that the courts are not going to change the 

 strict liability doctrine, and the Fish and Wildlife Service will not 

 and cannot regulate themselves, even based on recommendations 

 from the 1990 Law Advisory Commission that was cited by Mr. 

 Horn. There is an attitude factor which that commission noted. 

 And quite frankly, the way the laws are administered, if the bait 

 is there, and you are there, you are guilty. It is a "slam dunk" for 

 the Fish and Wildlife Service. So why should they want to change? 



My vantage point of experience to testify before you today, Mr. 

 Chairman, is that as an attorney in private practice, I have been 

 involved in representing many individual sportsmen and an incor- 

 porated sportsmen's club in baiting cases throughout the nation, in- 

 cluding several in Mr. Miller's State. In addition, in the theme of 

 physician, "heal thyself," I was a defendant in a baiting case that 

 I unsuccessfully took to the Court of Appeals in the Fourth Circuit, 

 which was a question that was similar in nature to the Beauchamp 

 case that was brought up today as to whether or not something 

 was a bona fide agricultural practice. 



First and foremost, the point needs to be underscored that 

 sportsmen, the law enforcement officials and, indeed, Members of 

 Congress all share the basic concern reflected in the Migratory 

 Bird Treaty Act that renewable migratory bird resources must be 

 protected from overexploitation by the implementation of appro- 

 priate management and enforcement policies. No sportsman that I 

 know disagrees with that premise. The disagreement and frustra- 

 tion are due to the absence of clear and appropriate regulations 

 coupled with reasonable wildlife law enforcement. 



Mr. Chairman, I have a lengthy statement, which I ask to be in- 

 serted in the record, which goes through the history of the law. But 

 basically, when the regulations were implemented in 1935, the first 

 case that came on was in 1939. That case was a Kentucky case. It 

 was followed very quickly by another Kentucky case, and they es- 

 tablished the doctrine of strict liability: that if the hunter is there, 

 the Government does not have to prove that he knew or should 

 have known that the bait was there. 



Now, on that inverted pyramid point of law, a large body of case 

 law has developed. Cases are disputed on the facts. The Represent- 

 ative from Idaho mentioned the Manning case, United States v. 

 Manning. That was a question of geese flying over a bluff to al- 

 leged bait 1,500 feet away from the hunters. The case that Mr. 

 Horn cited was a case that I handled on the Eastern Shore, where 

 the blind was 4,899 feet from the alleged bait. Now, the presump- 

 tion is that the hunter knew or should have known the alleged bait 

 was there. Does that mean that if a hunter comes to a blind in the 

 dark of night where he has never been there before, and he is re- 



