Posted on 06/29/2007 6:23:42 PM PDT by george76
The 73-year-old man who strung heavy cables across a trail on the San Francisco Peaks that clotheslined a motorcyclist won't be going to jail.
J.D. Protiva will receive supervised probation for one year after pleading guilty to three counts of felony endangerment in a case in which a motorcyclist hit one of the cables and was thrown from his bike in September. He was also banned from the Coconino National Forest.
Protiva was sentenced Tuesday after telling a Coconino County Superior Court judge he had gone too far in a frustrating attempt to ban motorcycles and protect nesting sites for Mexican spotted owls.
"I am totally ashamed of my cowardly action," Protiva told Judge Dan Slayton.
He described letters to the Arizona Daily Sun that went unpublished, requests to the Coconino National Forest that went unfulfilled and signs he posted prohibiting motorcycles that were quickly taken down.
Eventually, he became fed up, deciding no one was willing to help him protect the owls' nest sites.
Judge Slayton seemed to side with Protiva on the question of whether motorcyclists could legally use the Challenger Trail ringing the base of the San Francisco Peaks. But he said Protiva also could have injured horse riders or hikers with the cables in an attempt to keep out the motorcyclists.
(Excerpt) Read more at azdailysun.com ...
sentenced for three felony counts of endangerment stemming from Protiva placing heavy cables across a trail used by motorcycles at the base of the San Francisco Peaks last fall...
Are these the undocumented Mexican spotted owls?
Put those same cables across the front driveway to a San Francisco abortion clinic and you’ll spend the rest of your life behind bars.
Different justice system based upon who does the same deed against whom.
These illegals must have gotten amnesty ?
“Judge Slayton seemed to side with Protiva on the question of whether motorcyclists could legally use the Challenger Trail ringing the base of the San Francisco Peaks. But he said Protiva also could have injured horse riders or hikers with the cables in an attempt to keep out the motorcyclists.”
Am I crazy or is this judge trying to rationalize that it was OK for a motorcyclist to be possibly decapitated but this idiots actions could of hurt other park users and therefore it probably wasn’t a good idea?
Amnesty? It’s for the birds!
Seems so.
Ok to kill some but not others ?
lol.
Amnesty? It’s for the birds!
The judge seemed to side with him?
The article never does say whether it’s illegal to ride on the trail but even if it is illegal, trying to kill someone in that manner deserves jail time, even if he is old and sorry.
I guess the probation means he has to wait a year before he puts the cables back up.
I like to hike in the woods. I even know the area where this took place, though I don’t live near there anymore. I am disgusted by all the people who cannot get off of a motorized vehicle, exercise their legs and heart, and enjoy the sound of nature instead of a whining engine. Obviously, many people don’t share my view. They love to ride in on the trails. The geezer took his disgust beyond the law. He should go to jail. The lard asses on motor bikes who could ride anywhere else but insist on riding in the woods will likely suffer clogged arteries, but that’s their choice.
One can only hope the so called judge doesn’t have to suffer the same fate someday.
Apparently it is a legal trail to ride. That is why he was putting up his “personal” closed signs. The USFS must have been removing them too ?
This guy could have killed someone. He was apparently found guilty of three felonies.
My view : the liberal judge gave him a pass because they are ‘fellow travelers.’
Eco-nut protecting each other ?
This guy is is Fruit Loop.
He is no better than a PETA freak who would kill a human to protest the killing of animals.
It kind of sounded that way to me too though it didn’t actually say.
If that is the case, it doesn’t speak well for Judge Dan Slayton. He sounds like he could be an enviro whack job too.
“I am disgusted by all the people who cannot get off of a motorized vehicle...”
I am disgusted by all the people who refuse to use a muffler, who don’t stick to the trails while riding, who tear up trout streams by riding in them, and who erode the trails so that I can’t walk on them.
In other words, I have no problem w/ people having a place to ride (sounds fun to me) but backpackers, horse riders and cyclists need to have their space — and silence — too.
This guy was “saving the owls” not fat riders.
We like to hike in the woods too. We go to non-motorized areas if we want that too.
Putting up personal closed signs on public property is not the answer.
Installing cables at neck height across public trails on public property that could kill someone is really not the answer.
This guy reminds me of :
Vlasak and his wife, the former child actress Pamelyn Ferdin, are both directors of a militant “direct action” Los Angeles group called the Animal Defense League .
” that political assassination “could be used quite effectively from a pragmatic standpoint ... for 5 lives, 10 lives, 15 human lives, we could save a million, 2 million, 10 million non-human lives.”
The liberal ethos; Criminality in their cause is virtuous. At least it is to most judges it seems.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.