DOJ Conceals Info in Runner’s Trial

Let’s say you want to set a record.  Actually, you want to BREAK an existing record, using the same path that previous record-holders have used.  Would you expect to be charged for doing so? Worse yet, would you expect to be prosecuted even after the folks who originally made the complaint dropped their complaint? If so… you’d be wrong.

Michelino Sunseri – who? He’s a runner, and wanted to break the record for running up and down Grand Teton in Wyoming.

For one thing, he publicized his route up and down Grand Teton with a map that he posted on social media. According to the NPS and the Justice Department, that map showed Sunseri had committed a federal misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in jail. And as WyoFile reporter Katie Klingsporn noted during Sunseri’s trial before U.S. Magistrate Judge Stephanie Hambrick in Jackson, Wyoming, the route that the NPS said he should not have taken, known as the “old climber’s trail,” is “a historic trail so well-used that it’s become a skinny singletrack.”

Only two signs are supposed to tell people the trail is off-limits.

One of those signs, at the top of the trail, said “shortcutting causes erosion.” The other sign, at the bottom of the trail, said “closed for regrowth.”

What, the area off the trail? OK, I’ll stay on the trail. Wrong answer.

The Code of Federal Regulations shows up to 300,000 which can be called infractions. Dahell?

Sunseri was charged with violating 36 CFR 21(b), which says a park superintendent “may restrict hiking or pedestrian use to a designated trail or walkway system.” It adds that “leaving a trail or walkway to shortcut between portions of the same trail or walkway, or to shortcut to an adjacent trail or walkway in violation of designated restrictions is prohibited.”

The regulation says nothing about criminal penalties, which are separately authorized by 16 USC 551. That law says violations of “rules and regulations” governing the use of public and national forests “shall be punished by a fine of not more than $500 or imprisonment for not more than six months, or both.”

Enter Trump’s executive order of May 9 –

By authorizing prosecution for agency-defined offenses, Congress has created a bewildering situation in which the average American cannot reasonably be expected to know when he is committing a federal crime. “This status quo is absurd and unjust,” Trump said in his executive order, which he issued on May 9. “It allows the executive branch to write the law, in addition to executing it.”

To summarize, he ordered agencies to enumerate what are the possible crimes and punishments and why they should be enforced. Sounds like common sense, right? Prevent agency overreach, stop agencies from creating their own little crimes? (BATFE anyone?)

The Interior Department, which includes the NPS, got the message. A week later, Damon Hagan, a deputy solicitor at the department, emailed Assistant U.S. Attorney Ariel Calmes, noting his office’s “review of our regulations for compliance” with Trump’s order. Hagan added that he “look[ed] forward to further discussions with your supervisors and yourself regarding the Michelino Sunseri matter.” Hagan also emailed Adam Gustafson, acting assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division, noting his office’s interest in reconsidering the Sunseri case.

Three days later, on May 19, Hagan emailed Nicole Romine, chief of the criminal division at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Wyoming, passing along a message “for your situational awareness” from Frank Lands, deputy director for operations at the NPS. “After further review,” Lands said, “the National Park Service is withdrawing its criminal prosecution referral in the Michelino Sunseri matter.” He noted that the prosecution’s most recent plea deal proposal entailed a fine and a five-year ban from Grand Teton National Park. Because “we believe” that represents “an overcriminalization based on the gravity of the offense,” he said, “we withdraw our support.”

It all ends up with Nicole Romine, chief of the criminal division at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Wyoming. Her response was:

“Thank you,” she wrote back to Hagan that evening. “We’re continuing with the prosecution.” Sunseri’s trial began the next day.  Reason.com

Two days of trial. Oh, and a little kicker: she did not disclose all this to the defense. So she prosecuted a case against this poor schmuck, KNOWING the agencies involved did not want to pursue the matter.  I am certainly no attorney, especially not in Wyoming, but I believe there is a concept called ‘discovery’ which means she has to disclose that to the defense? (Thank you, Ms. Mona Lisa Vito.) Certainly the defense says their whole game plan would have gone differently.

The judge has yet to render a verdict. I suspect at this point Judge Hambrick is gonna be thrilled to find two days of her court time may have been  probably wasted – I suspect further that the best Ms. Romine will get is a mistrial, if not an outright dismissal. Any of our  lawers care to elucidate further?

Category: Crime, Dick Stepping