Obviously the DNR screwed this one up royal and I totally agree with the decision. They shouldn’t even be able to track you at all in my opinion. But the fact remains a giant poacher got away with it and is still out there free to do it some more.
So was it because they placed it on his vehicle on his property without the search warrant or are tracking warrants basically being struct down with this decision?
I don’t know if he is dumb enough to do it some more. But I guess poachers are essentially self serving and arrogant by nature. So he probably will…and hopefully will get caught.
While it seems obvious that this fella most likely would have been found guilty of the charges, I do agree with the ruling. My opinion is based solely on the one news article linked above.
It’s a crying shame he was let off.
I’m sure he will poach again and hopefully next time he will be charged with a felony.
It is a shame the guy just walks but the Co’s put their own dinks in the zipper on this one. Now at least there are a couple of precedents to make sure things in the future are done by the book.
That’s crap. I agree with the right for privacy, but the officers went and got a warrant to attach the GPS, that should have been enough. In my opinion the judge that gave them the GPS warrant is the one who screwed up big time!
To go into the whole picture about this, though, it wasn’t just our DNR that was caught out by this “no GPS tracking without a warrant” ruling. That Supreme Court ruling was actually handed down in 2013, and prior to that using a GPS tracking device was a common investigative technique all over the country because, basically, nobody said law enforcement COULDN’T do it.
Use of these GPS trackers was so common, that there was a huge demand for GPS detectors that could tell people if their vehicle had been “rigged” with a tracker. There were cases nationwide that got thrown out based on this ruling and I’m sure more are to come.
I can’t blame the DNR for using all the tools that they thought they could use. I have to believe that if there was a quick/easy way to catch this perp, then they would have done it. I can only imagine that this reliance on technology is in response to the fact that our DNR is MASSIVELY under-manned when it comes to enforcement. Can it be any more obvious? Here we’ve got a perp that gunned down at least 15 deer and who here really believes those were the ONLY 15 he ever took?
There’s a whole new world of electronic spy toys that are going come under the same “can they or can’t they” scrutiny when it comes to law enforcement use. Just last night they had a segment on Ch. 5 news about law enforcement ramping up the use of drones. Hmmm. No potential civil rights issues there…
Grouse
Guessing the guy, as well as others, will be way more cautious and harder to catch now. Thanks CO’s and mn dnr for once again being dumber than the crooks stealing from the public. Our dnr needs a real wake-up call.
Guessing the guy, as well as others, will be way more cautious and harder to catch now. Thanks CO’s and mn dnr for once again being dumber than the crooks stealing from the public. Our dnr needs a real wake-up call.
I guess I couldn’t disagree with you more. The CO did his job. The guy got caught, his name was plastered all over the newspapers. He won’t be able to take a dump in Minnesota without somebody knowing who he is. I’m sure now that he is free to go he will move to Montana or Alaska where he isn’t known. He will be poaching again by the 4th of July.
What a joke our judicial system is.
Guessing the guy, as well as others, will be way more cautious and harder to catch now. Thanks CO’s and mn dnr for once again being dumber than the crooks stealing from the public. Our dnr needs a real wake-up call.
Totally disagree. First off, why’s it a bad thing that this perp is now looking over his shoulder with the feeling he’s being watched?
Also totally disagree with your characterization of the DNR as being “dumb”. What’s “dumb” about using a tool that you have at your disposal and that you believe to be legal?
The DNR has ALWAYS operated on a different legal footing as regards rules around conducting searches. I don’t think it’s a matter of being “dumb”, it took a court ruling to clarify that this supreme court ruling applied to them (the DNR). Yes, a perp got away with something, but the problem is that without the tracker, would he ever have been caught in the first place? Probably not.
If the DNR had the right level of enforcement manpower in the first place, they probably would have had other options for catching this guy. IMO poaching in MN in rampant and that’s not the DNR’s fault, it’s the fact that in MN we just prefer to put our heads in the sand and pretend it’s not happening or that it’s no big deal.
Grouse
The guy was guilty. That fact cannot be denied. The DNR should have taken EVERY STEP to make sure that what they were doing with the tracking device was OK by law (and please don’t tell me that they did their due diligence because clearly they did not…). They didn’t do that so ya, they dropped the ball and because of that this POS is still out there…RR
Yep, he got caught. But was let off because the CO’s didn’t dot their i’s or cross their t’s or do what was needed to to get the charges to stick. Call it ignorant, an oversight, lazy or dumb, they didn’t do their job correctly or as needed. So mountains of time and money down the toilet, I consider that dumb.
Once the dust clears in fifteen minutes, no one will know or care what he’s doing, and he’ll go about his business. He’ll probably just be even more covert now and could probably press charges against the CO’s if they harass him.
It’s just more proof how inept the dnr really is. The money and time is no skin off anybody’s nose cause Minnesota’s residents have bottomless pockets they can just keep digging in.
The dnr and CO’s tried catching this guy by ignoring the law. This guy got away with stealing from the public, because the enforcement agency was ignoring the law, just like he was. Granted they were trying to catch a habitual poacher, but what should have been a slam dunk, wasn’t. They got arrogant, were sloppy and should have known better. In my book the guys who were in charge of this should be held liable for the cost and time lost for fumbling something that was so easily avoidable. The judiciary process has its flaws, but in this case I don’t think we should just give up certain freedoms of being watched or tracked without due process. But I tend to believe freedom comes at a cost. The burden of proof lies on the law to have some standards of operation. Law enforcement isn’t above the laws they are trying to enforce. Yeah, it sucks he got off on a technicality, but that’s due process and sometimes it sucks.
Before any more pile on, the county attorney issued the “tracking order”. The CO’s just investigate the crime. If the county attorney said they were good to go they had no reason not to.
Use drones to catch these losers. I dont follow the laws on drones but they can be flown over private property and the property owner cant do much about it because its in the airspace. Correct me of im wrong.
I’ve dealt with some absolutely great CO’s. We’ve even helped them bust guys in the field. That was not fun and I don’t envy them with the job they do. On a bust like that I’d be willing to bet though there was some overly eager CO’s wanting to further their careers, that wanted to nail that dbag to the wall. I would too. But something seems a miss with how they went about it? A case like that doesn’t just get thrown out just because, somebody dropped the ball big-time. If it was the CA, shame on him for not making absolutely sure of what he was doing. In most cases like that, there’s a person that tried to walk that thin line and they got burnt bad on this one, sad really. Think of the man hours, money, time and restitution fines lost. Unbelievable!
You can’t say DNR on a site full of Mille Lacs fishermen without getting a negative reaction. Anyone who thinks the DNR was dumb in this situation is dumb themselves. How about that? 
You can’t say DNR on a site full of Mille Lacs fishermen without getting a negative reaction. Anyone who thinks the DNR was dumb in this situation is dumb themselves. How about that?
Huh?
To go into the whole picture about this, though, it wasn’t just our DNR that was caught out by this “no GPS tracking without a warrant” ruling. That Supreme Court ruling was actually handed down in 2013, and prior to that using a GPS tracking device was a common investigative technique all over the country because, basically, nobody said law enforcement COULDN’T do it.
Use of these GPS trackers was so common, that there was a huge demand for GPS detectors that could tell people if their vehicle had been “rigged” with a tracker. There were cases nationwide that got thrown out based on this ruling and I’m sure more are to come.
I can’t blame the DNR for using all the tools that they thought they could use. I have to believe that if there was a quick/easy way to catch this perp, then they would have done it. I can only imagine that this reliance on technology is in response to the fact that our DNR is MASSIVELY under-manned when it comes to enforcement. Can it be any more obvious? Here we’ve got a perp that gunned down at least 15 deer and who here really believes those were the ONLY 15 he ever took?
There’s a whole new world of electronic spy toys that are going come under the same “can they or can’t they” scrutiny when it comes to law enforcement use. Just last night they had a segment on Ch. 5 news about law enforcement ramping up the use of drones. Hmmm. No potential civil rights issues there…
Grouse
Pretty much
What a joke our judicial system is.
Worked exactly how it is supposed to. I don’t agree with the decision but I am also unclear on the timeline of events.
The guy was guilty. That fact cannot be denied. The DNR should have taken EVERY STEP to make sure that what they were doing with the tracking device was OK by law (and please don’t tell me that they did their due diligence because clearly they did not…). They didn’t do that so ya, they dropped the ball and because of that this POS is still out there…RR
My impression is that the MNDNR did do exactly what they thought they needed to. Unless I am unclear on the timeline it sounds like the legal precedent established in JONES were in a way retroactively applied to this case.
How can you “retroactively” apply something to a present day case, that was applied in a case years ago ? 
If somebody, anybody, including the DNR does something they thought they needed to do and it turns out to be wrong… what does that make them ? I feel it makes them WRONG and not knowing the laws, makes them negligent in getting a resource thief his deserved punishment.
God help us if they don’t apply retroactively things that would find a person innocent. Example, if a LEO comes up with a new way to entrap someone then the first person to be entrapped would always be guilty without retroactive application of the law. It needs to be there.
Sadly this D-bag used it to his advantage.
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