Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Judge: Rancher must pay punitive damages to border crossers he kidnapped

I feel for the rancher but the law is what the law is. Mr. Weiser seems to agree with that since he acknowledged that they made a mistake in how the law was written.

Unless the rancher abused the detainees my sympathies are on his side. The other side should be happy he didn't shoot them as trespassers.

Bill Clinton did back in 1996.
I googled "Frank Zapata federal judge" and learned he was born in Safford in 1944.
During his career he worked for/assisted the Southern Ariz Legal Aid Society tending legal services for the poor. (goggle Southern Ariz Legal Aid Society)

He just recently dismissed a case with prejudice filed by the Center for Biological Diversity (an extreme environmentalist/animal rights group) and others against Rosemont Copper and US Forest Service.
Sounds good because it was just another frivolous lawsuit filed by CBD in an attempt to slow the process. With prejudice means CBD cannot refile another frivolous suit.

http://azstarnet.com/news/science/e...cbb8d28-f1a2-5a1d-a702-bc21ec553096.html

BUT he did ORDER that $6000 be paid to CBD from federal coffers to pay for CBD's legal expenses!
That is just wrong......i'm sure this comes from his personal life and experiences while working at SALA (helping the small fight the big).....but his decision allows the CBD to continue to file frivolous lawsuits with no dent in their legal fund.

His decision against the AZ rancher follows a similar path......make the big landowner pay the small poor.

Nobody in this thread has provided any reasoning why the judges decision was wrong (based on law, not opinion).

While Zapata certainly is hispanic name, his bias needs to be proven by proving that his interpretations of the law was incorrect. Opinions on the other hand, they are like arseholes.

just further proof that we are no longer a nation of law


well we are, but the law is used as a tool to further the liberal agenda and that's about all it is good for now.


think of this in it's most distilled form

the US gov't is derelict in it's duty to secure the border

you own private property along or near the border

in order to protect your life, liberty and pursuit of happiness you detain folks illegally trespassing upon your property (doesn't matter to me what their immigration status is, it could be direct descendants of the Mayflower for all I care, but if they're trespassing and abusing your property rights they're illegal in their actions)


end result the folks you detained are set free

you pay 60K, plus probably an equal or greater amount to attorneys


that's what goes for justice in our country


illegal immigration while a problem, is just a symptom of the real problem

those folks in DC, they truly have become the enemy to the US Constitution and the rule of law

I'd like to know how he "illegally detained" them? I guess if someone is walking across your ranch you don't have any right to ask them what they are doing? Are they stealing things from out in the field? Are they getting ready to attack you in your house? What are you supposed to say to them "have a nice day and I hope you don't fall on my ranch and sue me"? This is the biggest bunch of Bull$hit I heard in a long time!

well said my friend.

This would be TOPICAL, I'd say.

GTC

A LAWYER WITH A BRIEFCASE CAN STEAL MORE THAN A THOUSAND MEN WITH GUNS.

This is very interesting! I never thought about it this way.

The Lawyers' Party, By Bruce Walker

The Democratic Party has become the Lawyers Party.

Barack Obama is a lawyer. Michelle Obama is a lawyer.

Hillary Clinton is a lawyer. Bill Clinton is a lawyer.

John Edwards is a lawyer. Elizabeth Edwards was a lawyer.

Every Democrat nominee since 1984 went to law school (although Gore did not graduate).

Every Democrat vice presidential nominee since 1976, except for Lloyd Bentsen, went to law school.

Look at leaders of the Democrat Party in Congress:

Harry Reid is a lawyer. Nancy Pelosi is a lawyer.


The Republican Party is different.

President Bush is a businessman.

Vice President Cheney is a businessman.

The leaders of the Republican Revolution:

Newt Gingrich was a history professor.

Tom Delay was an exterminator. Dick Armey was an economist.

House Minority Leader Boehner was a plastic manufacturer.

The former Senate Majority Leader Bill First is a heart surgeon.

Who was the last Republican president who was a lawyer? Gerald Ford, who left office 31 years ago and who barely won the Republican nomination as a sitting president, running against Ronald Reagan in 1976.

The Republican Party is made up of real people doing real work, who are often the targets of lawyers.

The Democrat Party is made up of lawyers. Democrats mock and scorn men who create wealth, like Bush and Cheney, or who heal the sick, likeFrist, or who immerse themselves in history, like Gingrich. The Lawyers Party sees these sorts of people, who provide goods and services that people want, as the enemies of America .. And, so we have seen the procession of official enemies, in the eyes of the Lawyers Party, grow.

Against whom do Hillary and Obama rail?....Pharmaceutical companies, oil companies, hospitals, manufacturers, fast food restaurant chains, large retail businesses, bankers, and anyone producing anything of value in our nation. This is the natural consequence of viewing everything through the eyes of lawyers. Lawyers solve problems by successfully representing their clients, in this case the American people. Lawyers seek to have new laws passed, they seek to win lawsuits, they press appellate courts to overturn precedent, and lawyers always parse language to favor their side.

Confined to the narrow practice of law, that is fine. But it is an awful way to govern a great nation. When politicians as lawyers begin to view some Americans as clients and other Americans as opposing parties, then the role of the legal system in our life becomes all-consuming. Some Americans become adverse parties of our very government. We are not all litigants in some vast social class-action suit. We are citizens of a republic that promises us a great deal of freedom from laws, from courts, and from lawyers.

Today, we are drowning in laws; we are contorted by judicial decisions; we are driven to distraction by omnipresent lawyers in all parts of our once private lives. America has a place for laws and lawyers, but that place is modest and reasonable, not vast and unchecked. When the most important decision for our next president is whom he will appoint to the Supreme Court, the role of lawyers and the law in America is too big.

When House Democrats sue America in order to hamstring our efforts to learn what our enemies are planning to do to us, then the role of litigation in America has become crushing.

Perhaps Americans will understand that change cannot be brought to our nation by those lawyers who already largely dictate American society and business. Perhaps Americans will see that hope does not come from the mouths of lawyers but from personal dreams nourished by hard work. Perhaps Americans will embrace the truth that more lawyers with more power will only make our problems worse.

The United States has 5% of the world�s population and 66% of the world�s lawyers! Tort (Legal) reform legislation has been introduced in congress several times in the last several years to limit punitive damages in ridiculous lawsuits such as spilling hot coffee on yourself and suing the establishment that sold it to you and also to limit punitive damages in huge medical malpractice lawsuits. This legislation has continually been blocked from even being voted on by the Democrat Party. When you see that 97% of the political contributions from the American Trial Lawyers Association go to the Democrat Party, then you realize who is responsible for our medical and product costs being so high!

Those punitive damages should be a 125 Gr. HP at about 1450 fps.

Nothing like a little deposit of precious metal.

This kind of BS breaks my heart. It's so sad our country has fallen so far. Our officials punish law abiding citizens and reward law breakers. Hasbeen

this has gotta change

Sounds to me like the rancher needs to sue the fed for not protecting him from their border defects.....and a hell of a lot more than $60k

S S S !

Or just pave a road across your property!

From the 9th district circuit court.
Not surprised.

Maybe I missed this, but can/will the rancher appeal??

Just more proof surnames are thicker than law. It's routine in South Texas. The rest of the US-not so much. You'll like it when their kids run over your kids and you have a Hispanic judge.

Look at this ,.....

Link: http://www.barnettstowing.com/

Roger Barnett is NOT a 'poor Man",....and has a few things going on besides his ranch. I'm very proud to consider a personal friend, and commend him for level headed and patient tenacity in the face of unrelenting ATTACKS.

One good day at the Barnett Corporation would pay these snivelling and corrupt "Lawyers" and their little Mexican syncophents off,.....most American folks have completely missed the point (I haven't)

it's not about the "MONEY" it's the PRINCIPAL of this [bleep]' thing.

Cold water, sandwiches handed out whilst waiting for the BP to come get the latest batch,.....?

Haven't seen THAT in the press recently,.....being God's own Honest Truth notwithstanding.

Sami is a real good example of just exactly what we're up against,....

So's this "Judge" and his half azzed call.

GTC

+1,000 high country. The rancher should sue the government for all the illegals that have been on his property and for not defending our borders.

Clinton....guy was a legal aid lawyer, public defender, then a magistrate judge for two years before Clinton appointed him in 1996.

How are supposed to respect the judicial system Steve when too often these are the types of results we see from said system?


I'm telling you sir, I want to respect the law and the rule of law but I find it exceedingly difficult to do so when it so often seems to line up with injustice rather than justice.


course I've given up on the gov't already.

just add this to the laundry list of Waco, Fast and Furious and too many other cases where rights are trampled to suit the agenda of the powers that be, whether Rep or Dem.


the mere fact that we just sit around and talk about them and turn out to vote while they bankrupt the nation, leave our borders unsecured, waste the treasure of our country and our servicemen's lives in Afghanistan while increasing their own pay and benefits is all you need to know about how corrupt the folks in DC are imo.

haven't followed the case and have no idea whether the decision is justifiable or not.....the attempt to ex post facto exonerate the guy probably wouldn't fly anywhere....don't know the facts of what he did...or what the two sides claim happened.

I also don't know what the law is on depriving individuals of the right to sue in a state's courts.....you can keep a corporation from using a state's courts if they don't qualify to do business there, but I don't know about an individual.

60K in punitives for a multiple kidnapping is ridiculously low....it sounds like a classic split verdict....rule in favor of the plaintiffs but don't give them much money.

personally, I find it absurd that the government has put its citizens in the position of facing the choice of being overrun by the invaders or risking civil liability if they do the government's job for them.

decisions like this just enourage SSS type solutions in confrontations.