Sentenced to....Watching Bambi?
Lawrence County Prosecutor Don Trotter said that he didn't have a problem with the cinematic penalty if it gets the point across to Berry.
Berry's defense attorney argued for leniency in sentencing because he had recently has a baby, but the judge responded with the legal obligation to watch the movie.
Comments from Allen:
Poaching is a crime never mentioned in law school, as the national legal curriculum focuses upon bad things that people do to other people. In areas in which wildlife abound, poaching is a major concern.
Poaching, or illegal hunting crimes basically consist of hunting without a license, hunting with someone else’s license, hunting the wrong animal, hunting in the wrong places or after sunset, failing to properly preserve hunted game, or hunting in excess of the limit of your license. In this era of cellphone pics, game officers frequently examine cellphones or personal computers to compile evidence of where and when a crime occurred, whether game was properly dressed, and how many animals were killed. They will also examine “trophy photos,” photos of a person holding a rifle next to a dead animal, and use that as evidence of a crime when the person posing with the animal either had no license or had his/her license suspended for illegal hunting. (the lesson here: don’t try to make yourself out to be the great game hunter when you don’t even have a license)
I had a poaching case in which my client was being prosecuted because he and his wife had been out in the woods, and the pair came back with a shot deer. The woman came back holding the very large rifle. She had a license and her husband’s license had been suspended. The husband was charged with illegally killing the animal because, the game wardens argued, the rifle that killed the deer was too large of a weapon to be used by the defendant’s diminutive wife.
This is the kind of evidence, and these are the kinds of allegations you see, in poaching cases.
As to our unlicensed friend Mr. Berry, the sheer volume of illegal hunts would warrant an extremely severe sentence. The one year in jail does not surprise me. But having Mr. Berry watch “Bambi” twelve times? Legal hunters regularly joke they are on a mission to kill Bambi, so there is no deterrent effect here. I can only guess it might be because the judge either wants to publicly shame the man by treating him like a child, or that he hates that cartoon so much he believes watching it is a kind of enhanced punishment.
Sources for more information:
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/blakemontgomery/deer-killer-bambi-prison-sentence?fbclid=IwAR0yUM1sw9ufwwXrsww6KeG4Vw1f06Cwg7-K2Oqjs2jpgwEU9LTIw-xk5XM
Officials don't have an exact count of how many deer were killed the the years long poaching operation because Berry destroyed the evidence. Trotter said that in the last three months of 2015, the Berry family killed around 100 deer according to the photos on their phones. The family used the heads as trophies in their homes. Trotter said the Berrys threatened the lives of people who tried to stop them.
Berry Jr. and David Berry Sr. were arrested in August after a multiyear investigation by state and federal authorities for crimes against wildlife in Kansas, Nebraska, MIssouri, and Canada. Prosecutors charged 14 Missouri residents with 230 crimes in 11 counties. Both Berry's have had their hunting privileges revoked for life.
The Missouri Department of Conversation estimates that the Berry's killed several hundred deer over three years, took their heads, and left their bodies to rot. The Berry's were caught in 2016, put on probation and fined, but they didn't stop.
Comments from Allen:
Poaching is a crime never mentioned in law school, as the national legal curriculum focuses upon bad things that people do to other people. In areas in which wildlife abound, poaching is a major concern.
Poaching, or illegal hunting crimes basically consist of hunting without a license, hunting with someone else’s license, hunting the wrong animal, hunting in the wrong places or after sunset, failing to properly preserve hunted game, or hunting in excess of the limit of your license. In this era of cellphone pics, game officers frequently examine cellphones or personal computers to compile evidence of where and when a crime occurred, whether game was properly dressed, and how many animals were killed. They will also examine “trophy photos,” photos of a person holding a rifle next to a dead animal, and use that as evidence of a crime when the person posing with the animal either had no license or had his/her license suspended for illegal hunting. (the lesson here: don’t try to make yourself out to be the great game hunter when you don’t even have a license)
I had a poaching case in which my client was being prosecuted because he and his wife had been out in the woods, and the pair came back with a shot deer. The woman came back holding the very large rifle. She had a license and her husband’s license had been suspended. The husband was charged with illegally killing the animal because, the game wardens argued, the rifle that killed the deer was too large of a weapon to be used by the defendant’s diminutive wife.
This is the kind of evidence, and these are the kinds of allegations you see, in poaching cases.
As to our unlicensed friend Mr. Berry, the sheer volume of illegal hunts would warrant an extremely severe sentence. The one year in jail does not surprise me. But having Mr. Berry watch “Bambi” twelve times? Legal hunters regularly joke they are on a mission to kill Bambi, so there is no deterrent effect here. I can only guess it might be because the judge either wants to publicly shame the man by treating him like a child, or that he hates that cartoon so much he believes watching it is a kind of enhanced punishment.
Sources for more information:
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/blakemontgomery/deer-killer-bambi-prison-sentence?fbclid=IwAR0yUM1sw9ufwwXrsww6KeG4Vw1f06Cwg7-K2Oqjs2jpgwEU9LTIw-xk5XM
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