The record-union., 1894-10-01
4 SINGULAR LEGAL REQUIREMENT.
How the Game Laws are Frequently
Botched.
What the Supreme Court Had to Say
About the Inconsistent Deer
Hide Clause.

Recently the fact was published in
these columns that the Supreme Court
had declared as imperative that clause
of the game law relating to the possession
and sale of deer hides. The text of the
decision is now at hand. and will be
found of interest to sportsmen and deal
ers in buckskin:
On the 18th of September the court
discharged on habeas corpus David
Mackey and Lancaster Lupton, con-
victed in humboldt County OF misde-
meanor Tor having deer hides in their
possession. The arrest was made under
section of local ordinance, reading as
follows:
Every person who, in the County of
humboldt, shall buy, sell or offer for
sale, transport or carry or have in his
possession any deer or deer skins, or any
hide or pelt from which the evidence OF
sex has been removed, or any of the
aforesaid game at time when it is un-
lawful to Kill the same, shall be guilty OF
mlSdemeanor."
Commenting upon the case, the Su-
preLne Court says:
The construction given to Section 10
by the Justice before whom the petition
erS were tried and convicted and now in
sisted upon by respondent, is that il is
unlawful to have in ones possession at
any time when it is unlawful to kill deer,
any deer skin, whether the evidence OF
sex has been removed or not. The open
season being from July 10Th to October
10th, 1t would necessarily follow, if that
construction Is correct, that the COM
plaint and judgment charging the pos
session OF deer skins on december 10Th,
stated an oftense upon which the petition
ers might be properly convicted and inn
prlSoned. But SUCH construction cannot
be maintained. Ii comedies, as all must
concede, that it is lawful to have in ones
possession, during the time IL Is lawful TO
Kill deer, the skins or hides, provided the
evidence ofseX has not been removed.
by Section 9 it is unlawful to sell the
hide or skin OF any deer at an time,
whether during the time it is lawful to
kill male deer, or during the time it is
unlawful TO do so. But 1t is unlawful TO
kill a female dec at any time, and be-
cause OF that prohibition and as an aid TO
the detection of its violation, it is made
unlawful to have in ones possession at
any time the skin or hide from which the
evidence of sex has been removed.
IF it were unlawful to have deerskins
in ones possession at any time there
would be no reason for the provision
that the evidence of sex should not be re-
moved from the skins. Coming back,
then, to the concession that one may law
fully have in possession deerskins DUR
fully killed, if the evidence of sex has
not been removed, what is to be done
with the skins when that season closes ?
1t is unlawful to sell them "at any time"
and if it is unlawful to have them in
ones possession after the season closes.
what recourse is left but to destroy them p?
And how would the destruction of all
the hides on October 10th OF each year
tend to the protection of game? 1t could
have no such tendency, but on the con-
trary would tend TO defeat the purpose oi
the ordinance to protect female deer by
the requirement that the evidence of sex
shall not be removed, since the destruc-
tion of the hide would be such removal.
at would have been a singular re-
quirement if the ordinance had provided
that at the end of the open season all
skins of deer should be destroyed, but it
would not be more singular than it now
is If the construction contended for by
the people can be sustained, which is that
if you sell the hides you are guilty OF a
misdemeanor, and if you keep them after
October 18th you are also guilty OF a mis-
demeanor."
The court concludes by saying that the
object of the law is the protection of the
females through preventing the having
in possession skins from which have
been removed evidence of sex. 1t was
not considered that the complaint charged
crime.