BigGameHoundsmen.com

This was prepared by, Dave (Double D) Devereaux, a Civil Rights Leader and Constitutional Expert:


Hunting cougar and bear with hounds should be legally permissible. The Supreme
Court has found that the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause "is essentially a
direction that all persons similarly situated should be treated alike." Considering that
hound hunting for birds and raccoon is perfectly legal, there has to be a legitimate state
interest that is not motivated by moral disapproval or political unpopularity. Moreover,
commercial animal slaughter is arguably a more egregious form of animal slaughter yet
is completely protected.

It is my belief that laws targeting hunting are driven by urban political organizations like
the HSUS, that have made it clear that they have a baseline moral objection to hunting
and hunting with hounds in particular. According to the US Census, hunters comprise
only 6% of Oregon's population. The anti-hunting lobby has targeted micro-populations
of an already small minority group and marginalized them with laws like prohibitions
against hunting bear and cougar with hounds.

Remember, moral disapproval is not a rational basis for a legitimate state interest and is
a clear violation of the Equal Protection Clause. The Supreme Court has been
unequivocal on this point. Justice O'Connor explained in Lawrence v. Texas (2003), "A
law branding one class of persons as criminal based solely on the State's moral
disapproval of that class and the conduct associated with that class runs contrary to the
values of the Constitution and the Equal Protection Clause, under any standard of
review." Justice O'Connor continues, "When a law exhibits such a desire to harm a
politically unpopular group, we have applied a more searching form of rational basis
review to strike down such laws under the Equal Protection Clause."

The 14th Amendment requires that hunting cougar and bear with hounds be given the
same protections that other methods of harvest receive. This includes other forms
hunting and trapping, especially considering that other forms of hound hunting are
protected. This also includes commercial animal slaughter. There is no meaningful
legal distinction between these similarly situated methods of animal use and harvest. In
fact, the only meaningful differences between the two are stereotype and method, which
are not justifications to deny equal access and protection of the law.

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Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
Equal Protection Clause

Main article: Equal Protection Clause

U.S. circuit judges Robert Katzmann, Damon Keith, and Sonia Sotomayor at a 2004 exhibit on the Fourteenth Amendment, Thurgood Marshall, and Brown v. Board of Education.
The equal protection clause was added to deal with the lack of equal protection provided by law to all in the course of administering justice in the states who had Black codes. Under black codes blacks could not sue, give evidence, be witnesses, received harsher degree of punishment, etc. The principal author of the Equal Protection Clause, John Bingham stated that phrase "equal protection" under the Fourteenth Amendment means that "It confers upon Congress power to see to it that the protection given by the laws of the States shall be equal in respect to life and liberty and property to all persons."[30] The inclusion of the words equal protection along with the words life, liberty and property provided protection for all persons from arbitrary taking of life, imprisonment or confiscation of property.[30] Bingham said in a speech from March 31, 1871 that "the words 'equal protection of the laws' were more than a glittering generality", but "that they were to be enforced to the extent of securing all guarantees of life, liberty, and property as provided by the supreme law of the land, the Constitution of the United States."[30] Thus it was Congress power to enforce laws guaranteed to all for the protection of life, liberty and property from arbitrary government action.[30] The equal protection of the laws disable legislatures and judges from unequally administering those rights of justice the State guarantees to all men (everyone has a right to process of law before being put to death, property confiscated or imprisoned).[25]

In the decades following the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Supreme Court overturned laws barring blacks from juries (Strauder v. West Virginia, 1880) or discriminating against Chinese Americans in the regulation of laundry businesses (Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 1886), as violations of the Equal Protection Clause. However, in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), the Supreme Court held that the states could impose segregation so long as they provided similar facilities—the formation of the "separate but equal" doctrine.[31] The Court went even further in restricting the Equal Protection Clause in Berea College v. Kentucky (1908), holding that the states could force private actors to discriminate by prohibiting colleges from having both black and white students. By the early 20th century, the Equal Protection Clause had been eclipsed to the point that Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. dismissed it as "the usual last resort of constitutional arguments."[32]

The Court held to the "separate but equal" doctrine for more than fifty years, despite numerous cases in which the Court itself had found that the segregated facilities provided by the states were almost never equal, until Brown v. Board of Education (1954) reached the Court. In Brown the Court ruled that even if segregated black and white schools were of equal quality in facilities and teachers, segregation by itself was harmful to black students and so was unconstitutional. Brown met with a campaign of resistance from white Southerners, and for decades the federal courts attempted to enforce Brown's mandate against repeated attempts at circumvention.[33] This resulted in the controversial desegregation busing decrees handed down by federal courts in various parts of the nation (see Milliken v. Bradley, 1974).[34] In Hernandez v. Texas (1954) the Court held that the Fourteenth Amendment protects those beyond the racial classes of white or "Negro" and extends to other racial and ethnic groups, such as Mexican Americans in this case. In the half century since Brown, the Court has extended the reach of the Equal Protection Clause to other historically disadvantaged groups, such as women and illegitimate children, although it has applied a somewhat less stringent standard than it has applied to governmental discrimination on the basis of race (United States v. Virginia, 1996; Levy v. Louisiana, 1968).[35]

Since Wesberry v. Sanders (1964)[36] and Reynolds v. Sims (1964),[37] the Supreme Court has interpreted the Equal Protection Clause as requiring the states to apportion their congressional districts and state legislative seats according to "one man, one vote".[38] The Court has also struck down redistricting plans in which race was a key consideration. In Shaw v. Reno (1993), the Court prohibited a North Carolina plan aimed at creating majority-black districts to balance historic underrepresentation in the state's congressional delegations.[39] In League of United Latin American Citizens v. Perry (2006), the Court ruled that Tom DeLay's Texas redistricting plan intentionally diluted the votes of Latinos and thus violated the Equal Protection Clause.

Further supported by Article 1 Section 1 of the California State Constitution.

"All people are by nature free and independent and have inalienable rights. [Among these are enjoying and defending life and liberty, acquiring, possessing, and protecting property, and pursuing and obtaining safety, happiness, and privacy."].

SB 1221 won't stand up to a constitutionality argument in court.

A group of elderly men & their families showing their life long commitment to the lifestyle of hunting with hounds and how they lived their lives, raised their families with it, and afterwards explaining about how they are ready to die because of how they can no longer enjoy nor pursue their happiness would prove unconsitutionality.

The increased humanity (with the blatantly untrue argument of inhumanness of dog pursuit & the therefore need for SB 1221) of hound hunting can be easily priced via a legal argument. The increased humaneness of dog pursuit can be easily proved when compared to other methods of take such as the likelyhood of maiming injuries & prolonged deaths from archery hunters.

They ability to immediatly shoot & kill dogs (destroy property) without due process of law even if those dogs have accidentally came across and gave chase to one of the estimated 100,000 bears or bobcats via an accident during the legal incident of a fox, coon, pig, or deer hunt is unconstitutional.

The easily provable false testimony of this Dr. Hopkins & Senator Lieu can be easily disproved by Ca. Dept of Fish & Wildlife data that is publicly available not discussed during the hearings.

That's just the tip of the iceberg. If anyone would like to discussion any of this send me a private message. There is so much more.