Opinion ID: 1418766
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: state fisheries jurisdiction

Text: Having concluded that the doctrines of federal exclusivity and pre-emption are not applicable, and that these regulations are not invalid under Supremacy clause of the Constitution of the United States, we turn now to the question of the extent to which Alaska may extend the reach of its laws and police power beyond the confines of its territorial borders. The appellees and the United States (appearing as amicus curiae) argue that a state has no legal authority to extend its control over fisheries over any area outside the three-mile limit. They take the position that the cases of Manchester v. Massachusetts [77] and Toomer v. Witsell [78] relied upon by appellants must be read restrictively to provide that a state may exercise power to regulate fisheries only to the limits of its territorial sovereignty. The appellant and the State of California, as amicus, urge strongly on the other hand that such cases must be construed liberally in order to permit effective fishery management. They propose a theory that the state's imperium, or political jurisdiction, can extend to activities beyond the boundaries of its territory, or dominium, when there is sufficient nexus between the activities and legitimate state interests  particularly in the area of the management of migratory fish and game. They argue that not only must the State be able to regulate fishing of all within the three-mile limit, it must be permitted to regulate the fishing of all outside the three-mile limit in those zones where there is a definite impact or an integral relationship between control of the fishery resource outside the three-mile limit and inside the three-mile limit. They argue that fishing management is meaningless if fishermen may wait until the particular fishery resource migrates outside the three-miles limit and then may fish without restraint. While the position of appellant is appealing from a standpoint of effective resource management, the question becomes whether this factor has been recognized by the United States Supreme Court as permitting the extension of state political control. Each party cites the same cases and draws differing conclusions from the language thereof. [79] We find, however, the language of several to be particularly helpful. Skiriotes v. Florida [80] is the touchstone for much of the dispute in this area. In Skiriotes, a sponge fisherman, a citizen of Florida, was charged with taking sponges with diving equipment, as prohibited by state law. There was controversy over whether the incident occurred within or without Florida's territorial waters, however; but the United States Supreme Court said that that question was of no concern, because the state had power to proscribe defendant's activity inside or outside the territorial waters. Specifically, it found that Florida had a legitimate interest in this exercise of the police power, at least as far as it was applied to the territorial waters in the absence of conflicting federal legislation. Then, reasoning by analogy to the principle that a nation may control the activities of its own citizens on the high seas, [81] the court said: If the United States may control the conduct of its citizens upon the high seas, we see no reason why the State of Florida may not likewise govern the conduct of its citizens upon the high seas with respect to matters in which the State has a legitimate interest and where there is no conflict with acts of Congress. (313 U.S. at 77, 61 S.Ct. at 929). A recent development in the Skiriotes line of cases came after Florida passed a statute permitting regulation of fishing activities both within and without the state boundaries. [82] In Felton v. Hodges, [83] Florida conservation officials arrested the appellant for operating crawfish traps outside the state's territorial limits during the closed season for crawfishing in that state. Felton brought a federal civil rights action, claiming the state had no authority to regulate crawfishing beyond its territorial waters and so was denying him due process. The appeals court affirmed a dismissal of his federal court action on the basis of Skiriotes. It said: Following the approach dictated by Skiriotes. we must inquire whether Florida has a legitimate interest in controlling the activities which it sought to regulate here. It appears ... that appellant's crawfish traps were located in a group of reefs adjacent to the Florida Keys, and that the crawfish in this area move freely in and out of Florida's territorial waters, so that any taking of them would clearly have an effect upon the State's conservation efforts. Under these circumstances, we think it apparent that the State has an interest sufficient to enable it to subject appellant, one of its own citizens, to the conservation regulations which it sought to enforce here. [84] The Court also found valid the arrest of Felton beyond the three-mile limit, concluding that this was solely a matter between the state and one of its own citizens: The arrests to which appellant alleges he was subjected were an integral part of the efforts of the State of Florida to regulate the conduct of one of its own citizens in a manner in which the State clearly had a legitimate interest. The fact that some arrests may have occurred just beyond the three-mile limit did not transmute these enforcement efforts into constitutional violations. In People v. Foretich, [85] the court dealt with a charge of taking fish with illegal gear. Defendants, who were California citizens, claimed to be outside the territorial waters; the State of California said they were within state waters. The court made a ruling on the boundary dispute such that defendants were within the line, but also noted that the statute clearly intended the law to operate in the area of dispute, and held that by Skiriotes it was fully capable of prosecuting its own citizens beyond the territorial limits. There was held to be no conflict with 16 U.S.C. § 1094, because that section was part of the 12-mile Contiguous Fisheries Zone Act, 16 U.S.C. §§ 1091-94, which was not itself a regulation of the fisheries in that zone. Another case discussing this issue is Gherra v. California Fish and Game Dep't. [86] Certain shrimp fishermen, citizens of California, fished in California shrimp beds until the regular yearly closure, then fished in a shrimp bed beyond the three-mile limit, partly beyond the 12-mile contiguous fisheries zone. During this latter period they operated with Oregon fishing permits, and without reentering California waters. California's closing laws specifically apply to this bed beyond the three-mile limit, and some fishermen were prosecuted for violating the closure (it was enforced only against California citizens). The three-judge federal court upheld the statute under Skiriotes. It stated: California does have a legitimate interest in regulating the taking of shrimp from the ocean off its coast. The shrimp bed in question was discovered and developed by California officials. It is adjacent to California territorial waters and, shrimp being migrating fish, some of them undoubtedly enter California during their migration. The ability of California to control the shrimp within its territorial waters is dependent, to some extent, upon its ability to limit the extraction of shrimp from the bed beyond. The court also found no federal preemption, since no federal law actually conflicted with the state regulations. The law applies only to Californians, the court noted, and this was the basis of the state's jurisdiction, not the situs of the regulated activities. We must confess at this point that the various interpretations of the case law in this area as urged by able counsel are clearly within the language of the opinions, and we would have an extremely difficult time favoring one approach over the other were it not for a recent decision of the Supreme Court of the United States which appears generally to tip the balance in favor of the appellants herein. In United States v. Alaska, [87] the United States Supreme Court noted a distinction between regulation for the purpose of fish and wildlife and the exercise of historic dominion for the purpose of establishing sovereignty by the United States or a state: Our conclusion that the fact of enforcement of game and fish regulations in Cook Inlet is inadequate, as a matter of law, to establish historic title to the inlet as inland waters is not based on mere technicality. The assertion of national jurisdiction over coastal waters for purposes of fisheries management frequently differs in geographic extent from the boundaries claimed as inland or even territorial waters. See, e.g., Presidential Proclamation No. 2668, 59 Stat. 885 (1945). This limited circumscription or the traditional freedom of fishing on the high seas is based, in part, on a recognition of the special interest that a coastal state has in the preservation of the living resources in the high seas adjacent to its territorial sea. Convention on Fishing and Conservation of the Living Resources of the High Seas, Art. 6, ¶ 1, 17 U.S.T. 138, 141, TIAS 5969 (1966). [Emphasis added] This distinction constitutes a basic premise in this opinion and is important herein because it recognizes the simple but inescapable argument of appellant that in the absence of some effective regulatory power, the coastal state is totally unable to protect and preserve what are functionally its fisheries resources. In the instant case, the migratory habit of crab are demonstrated in the record. Most of the developmental stages in a crab's life occurs in territorial waters of the state and little fishing for crab is done in such waters because of the condition of the crab during this period. However, the crab then move into deeper waters for feeding, etc. and the fishing begins. In the absence of any control over these areas, the entire stock of the fishery can be depleted to the point where no crab fishery exists. The detriment to all persons is obvious. We will now turn to analysis of the particular aspects of the problem of extending the state's police power jurisdiction extra-territorially. The state has bolstered its argument by reference to cases from other states in which a landing law [88] has been upheld as being within the constitutional power of a state to regulate activity outside the area of its sovereignty. It cites a number of cases which will be discussed in turn. In Silz v. Hesterberg, [89] the Supreme Court upheld New York laws prohibiting the possession of game in New York during a closed season, including game brought in from outside the state. The Court stated that the laws were aimed not at affecting the legality of taking game outside the state, but rather at protecting game located in the state. It concluded on this basis that the laws did not violate the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court also concluded that the laws did not unlawfully regulate interstate commerce because the effect on commerce was only incidental and remote. [90] In Bayside Fish Co. v. Gentry, [91] the Court upheld certain California fish and game laws that regulated the processing of sardines in California, whether the sardines were taken within the waters of the state or outside them. The purpose of the regulation, the Court found, was to conserve for food the fish found in state waters. The provisions regulated only manufacture within the state, and their direct operation, intended and actual, was wholly local. The Court found any effect on interstate and foreign commerce to be purely incidental, indirect, and beyond the purposes of legislation. [92] To the extent the laws dealt with the use or treatment of fish brought into the state from outside, the Court stated, their legal justification rested on the ground that they operated as a shield against the covert depletion of the local supply, and thus tend[ed] to effectuate the policy of the law by rendering evasion of it less easy. [93] Other courts have upheld similar laws on similar bases. [94] In each, the courts found that it was a valid exercise of police power for states to attempt to conserve fish located in state waters. The courts found further that this power includes the right to prohibit possession of fish taken outside the state or, in the case of Santa Cruz Oil, supra, to require a permit for any fishing boat operating in state waters, even if the boat caught all of its fish outside the state. Courts have found the effects of these laws on interstate commerce to be incidental and necessary to prevent possible deception by the fishermen: fishermen might otherwise subvert the conservation efforts of the states by fishing in state waters but claiming that they took their catch beyond those waters. The inability to distinguish fish taken within the state from those taken outside would render enforcement of the state laws difficult at best. Appellees counter by asserting, as was posited in Hjelle v. Brooks , [95] that a state may regulate extra-territorial conduct only if the regulations facilitate conservation of a resource clearly within the state. They then take the position that since the majority of all fishing for king crab occurs outside the three-mile limit, and that crab only come inside the limit to mate or molt, there is simply no state fishery to be protected by the regulations. However, the key question is whether Alaska's interest qualifies as one recognized for a legitimate exercise of police power. The answer is clearly yes  there is an established fishery with clear economic impact in the Bering Sea fishery area. The migratory habits of the crab are predictable and fishing outside the three-mile limit depends on growth and development within the limit. If the fishery outside the three-mile limit destroys the resource outside, it will similarly destroy the resource inside the three-mile limit. If the State of Alaska cannot protect this resource under its police power, then such power is far more limited than any recorded case reveals. We do not find that the state's interest in regulation is as limited as the position asserted by appellees and adopted by the three-judge federal court in Hjelle. The Hjelle court based its decision on the conclusion that the purpose of the landing laws was to regulate the crabs beyond the limit, not within it. The court said: This line of cases leads us to conclude that Alaska's proffered nexus between its legitimate state interests and its regulation of certain extraterritorial conduct would pass constitutional muster if its regulations were directed at conserving the crab fishery within Alaska's waters by regulating crabbing in that area, and, in order to facilitate enforcement, by prohibiting the possession of crab in the state during the closed season, even if that crab were caught outside the state. Despite the state's claim that the regulations are on all fours with these landing law cases, we find, after considering the language of the regulations and the affidavits presented ... reasonably certain to establish that the regulations do not fall within the purview of these cases. [96] We conclude that an analysis of those cases cited demonstrates that in fact these decisions were justified primarily on conservation of the resource. The Silz decision, for example, may well have relied solely on the difficulty of enforcement, but that case is distinguishable on its facts, involving game which clearly did not migrate in and out of the state but with respect to which a difficulty of enforcement did exist due to the identity of the species. In all of the landing law cases cited by the Hjelle decision and this court, not one required that an enforcement problem be necessary. While in most of the cases an enforcement problem did exist, it is unquestionable that those courts were apprised of the simple conservation principle which exists in the case at bar. Like the fish in all of the cases in question, crab exist both within and without the territorial waters of the State. It is impossible to quantify the amount of crab within Alaska waters in the BSSA (due in part to the lack of precise boundaries in the Bering Sea), [97] but it is clear from the facts that it is not very small as the Hjelle court preliminarily concluded; in fact it is rather significant at some times of the year, and fishable quantities exist during all times of the year. Of those cases cited in Hjelle, the Frach case, supra, is perhaps the most directly analogous. There, a Washington statute requiring a permit for bringing certain fish taken on the high seas into the state was upheld as constitutional. The court found no conflict with the interstate commerce clause, since any burden on interstate commerce was the indirect result of a measure needed to facilitate regulation of in-state fishing, because of the impossibility of distinguishing among fish caught different places. That case involved salmon which, like crab, spend the substantial portion of their lives on the high seas and return to state waters for only short periods of time to spawn. In several respects, however, salmon as a migratory resource present a more extreme case than crab in that they spend the majority of their lives in high seas areas far beyond territorial waters, while Alaskan crab do not. Also, there are periods when salmon are totally absent from state waters, whereas crab exist year round in fishable quantities in the territorial waters of the Bering Sea. Since the regulation in question was enacted pursuant to the State's police power, we also note an Alaska decision on this subject. In Kingery v. Chapple [98] we noted that when a regulation is challenged as a violation of the police power of the state, the issue is whether the regulations bear a reasonable relationship to the purpose sought to be achieved. While this Court in Kingery held that under these circumstances the state is required to come forward with at least prima facie evidence that a reasonable relationship exists, the Hjelle court seemed to be requiring that the state prove conclusively that its system provide the most effective system with the least possible infringement on extra-territorial conduct. [99] Nor did the Hjelle court give the state the benefit of all doubts in deciding the nature of the purpose behind the state's regulations. [100] Rather, the court in Hjelle assumed that the state sought to directly regulate extra-territorial conduct because the quota was based on fishing in the entire area, because one regulation prohibits the possession in Alaska only of that crab and sea life taken seaward of Alaska territorial waters, and because the percentage of king crab taken commercially within Alaska waters is very small. These conclusions run contrary to all authority on the subject regarding the intent to be given state laws. The intent of the state's laws and regulations is clearly not to effect extra-territorial activity to any greater extent than is necessary to preserve the king crab fishery within state waters. If it is not clear from the legislative findings in AS 16.10.180, it is certainly clear from the facts developed in this case  crab are migratory creatures which move offshore, beyond the state's territorial boundary at various times during a given year. If the state is to conserve the crab existing within the state, it must regulate the taking of crab outside the state. If fishermen were allowed to fish the crab beyond the state's border unregulated, the maximum sustained yield of crab both inside and outside the state would decrease. Unlike the situation in Silz, where the extra-territorial taking would not in the least affect the in-state resources stocks, the interdependency of the in-state and extra-territorial resources is determinative. AS 16.10.180(4)(5) makes it clear that the purpose of the application of fisheries laws to the high seas is to conserve shellfish found inside the waters of the state. The method of accomplishing this purpose is reasonably related to the purpose; it is, therefore, permissible. Kingery v. Chapple, supra . Nor can defendant argue that the effect on extra-territorial conduct somehow requires a higher standard of review. Such a requirement is nowhere to be found in any of the extra-territorial conduct cases. Hjelle, while seemingly applying a higher standard, failed to consider either Skiriotes or Toomer v. Witsell, supra . Those cases clearly found sufficient nexus on only minimal proof of nexus while extra-territorial regulation was clearly necessary to preserve a migratory resource. Finally, the Hjelle court in fact specifically recognized that other nexus might well sustain the regulations in question if developed by competent evidence. In the case in question, such competent evidence exists before this court in the stipulations of the parties, and we conclude that on balance a sufficiently close connection to legitimate state interests has been established to validate the state's limited efforts to regulate this resource. We are cognizant of the unfortunate situation created by a restrictive reading of the landing law cases. The state which is the fishery breeding ground has no ability to regulate unless it can demonstrate a local fishery resource. Consequently, in undeveloped areas of Alaska such as the northern portions of the Bering Sea and the Arctic Ocean there could simply be no regulation. The subsistence nature of the fishery and the lack of economic development by the aboriginal inhabitants prior to the Alaska Native Settlement Act of 1972 would be the fortuitous circumstance which prevented regulation. We find such a view to be, in short, unrealistic and unacceptable. We therefore conclude that a state may reasonably extend its jurisdiction to control fish and game resources outside the limited area of its territorial sovereignity, if such an exercise is based on the conservation principles inherent in their migratory characteristics and not based on artificial boundaries or political circumstances.