Re: Scott Parker Pleads Guilty

Wizard, interesting post above in that I agree with much you say. Please understand however that I am not trying to defend Scott or change the outcome of his court appearance. Although there are some grounds for a review of his plea, on such a very light sentence, such would be totally impractical cost wise. With all the local allegations of what Scott has done at the springs, I would totally agree that he got off easy.

My initial response to this topic feed off of the original post by Ron. Ron posted: "This last Wednesday Scott got his day in court. He went prepared to contest all six citations with an attorney." Ron then went on to claim that the prosecution immediately "...waived the two remaining charges which were, staying beyond the day use hours as it was included in the camping citation and posession of glass containers as aparently it is not posted at the springs..."

A few of the follow-up posts made me question if Scott truly "got his day in court" as Ron claimed. In checking the law of 36 CFR Sec. 261.16, I found that the citation under that alleged violation should have been dropped also. If his attorney advised Scott to plead guilty to that, obviously, the attorney had not even read the law so how could Ron claim that Scott truly "...went prepared to contest all six citations..."

I'm sure Scott thought he was prepared because he thought he had an attorney properly advising him; and Scott blindly took his attorney's advice (which sent Scott down the river).

Should the hot springs be legally posted for some of the other items (restrictions) in which Scott was cited for? Should those citations have been dropped also because they are also not posted? Should his attorney have argued that people hike and camp and use stoves along the other portions of the Pacific Crest Trail continuously; so why isn't the portion along Deep Creek posted with a warning that that tiny portion of the PCT has a special restriction? Do we have Entrapment here? Smells like it! Lack of Due Process of notice? Hmmmmm.

Did Scott know better? Yes.
Was Scott warned? I'm sure many posters here warned him.
Did the Forest Service PROPERLY post it's restrictions to make their local special restrictions enforceable? Not that I've ever seen.

Yes, all the local hot springers know of the special restrictions. Scott, I'm sure, knew them too. But for the special restrictions to be enforceable under law, adequate notice needs to be posted for everyone; otherwise, the court will likely rule entrapment. If Scott knew how to challenge the prosecutor's allegations, he may have been totally exonerated.

Morally, I believe that we all would feel that exoneration would have been wrong. However, legally, such may have been proper because the authorities have the responsibilities to follow the law too which requires them to meet their obligations. Yes, sometimes some bad people get a free release (such as inadmissible evidence because of an illegal search), but the release is based upon rights which protects our higher rights.