Regular readers know that your correspondent has found great amusement ribbing legislators for their passage of various
seafood related crimes, from the
11 felonies Texans can commit involving oysters to last session's new felony for
misrepresenting the size of a fish in a tournament. Now, the first felony charges have been filed for misrepresenting the size of a fish, the
Houston Chronicle reported Monday, against seven women and their fishing guide for exaggerating their catch, a 3rd degree felony offense which could garner each of these nefarious culprits up to 10 years in prison. Reported the Chron:
Game wardens inspecting the takes of the "Nice Tails" team at the
annual Ladies Kingfish tournament last month knew something was up when
they saw a trout with a mottled belly and a flounder whose appearance
since the team's last inspection was fishy at best.
The unlikely
"catches" to them were another example of a sort of open secret: that
cheaters were among the competitors for the thousands of dollars in
prizes awarded during one of South Padre Island's biggest events.
As you might expect, Grits considers this new felony both dumb and unnecessary, and since I've already explained why I'll just repeat those comments here.
You know what the punishment should be for cheating or lying about the
length of a fish in a tournament if you get caught? Disqualification.
Ban them from future tournaments. If the tournament is affiliated with
others, ban them from those. Why can't the private sector take care of
this on its own? Why should law enforcement be involved at all, much
less make it a third degree felony? After all, prosecution for the
offense assumes the perpetrator is found out; if they don't catch
cheaters, they face no penalty, criminal or otherwise.
Looking at this bill, though, claims about fish lengths, weights and
numbers at tournaments had already been subsumed under the purview of
law enforcement, this just boosts the penalty to felony status. An
already existing provision in the law holds that "A person commits an
offense if the person sponsors or conducts a fishing tournament and
knows of the occurrence in the tournament of activity prohibited by
Subsection (b) of this section and does not immediately notify a law
enforcement officer commissioned by the director of its occurrence." So
not only is cheating or lying about your catch an offense, it's an
offense for tournament managers not to report it!
A 3rd degree felony obligates taxpayers to a 2-10 year prison sentence,
or if the fisherman is put on probation, that puts them at greater risk
of imprisonment later for violating their probation terms. Government
has no business being involved in prosecuting fishermen for
exaggerating their catch. I'm certain you could have prosecuted half the
boys in my senior class for lying about the biggest fish they ever
caught. I don't condone doing it in a tournament, but I can't fathom why
it's the government's job punish hyperbolic anglers for misrepresenting
a fish when the private sector has ample remedies available to them.
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10 comments:
Isn't lying to gain a monetary reward a crime? Cheating in a high dollar fishing tournament is fraud, so I don't have a problem prosecuting people for the crime.
Might be be some hot tuna in the ladies department at the slammer!
But lying in a golf tournament, for example, is not a specifically outlawed felony crime.
If the pin changer knocks over one of my pins during a bowling tournament, I don't go to prison for two years for not reporting that.
There's no statute on the books that makes it a felony to use a corked bat.
Since this is a specific saltwater fishing related law, the legislature must not have thought that the general fraud statutes covered this kind of cheating.
This is down right ridiculous. Our lawmakers don't have anything better to do? Talk about fishy!
" Why should law enforcement be involved at all, much less make it a third degree felony?"
But GRITS, we must find SOME way to keep out prisons full !! (Insert sarcasm here.)
Hey Grits, as a professional Lobbyist, would you agree that it took one to make this so? If Yes, how would we learn his / her name?
Please consider publishing the full names of those that voted Yea & Ney on this BS here as an update so that we may know who exactly has to go. (Of course, folks can go to Links but most won’t.) Then again no one's going anywhere due to us the people (voters) being the one's that employee Lawmakers without vetting and or concern unless it involves us directly.
Ex: Since I don’t enter, or sponsor fishing tournaments of any kind, I would be prompted to not give a rat’s ass. But as a taxpayer that's going to participate in funding this forever, I'm very concerned. Thank you for bringing this to our (taxpayers') attention, the so-called 'media' isn’t touching it with a 50 to 60 foot pole.
This is like 80% of all other felony offenses, it's all about money for the government and only about money! There are a lot of other ways of addressing this with out spending my money on it! We need to bring back the phrase "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!"
Of course this whole affair is ridiculous and shames our state as morons. But under all this, I cannot help but note that this absurd intrusion into private matters (There are plenty of ways for event organizers to handle this on their own.) comes from the very righteous "conservatives" who are constantly carping about getting government "off our backs" and blocking government intrusions into private areas. What flaming hypocrisy!
(Oh, the bot scanner has been reasonable for awhile now. Maybe it was just having a rough patch?)
Of course this whole affair is ridiculous and shames our state as morons. But under all this, I cannot help but note that this absurd intrusion into private matters (There are plenty of ways for event organizers to handle this on their own.) comes from the very righteous "conservatives" who are constantly carping about getting government "off our backs" and blocking government intrusions into private areas. What flaming hypocrisy!
(Oh, the bot scanner has been reasonable for awhile now. Maybe it was just having a rough patch? Wait! No, it's still being a pain)
Sad, most Americans seem OK with fellow citizens being packed off to prison for nonsensical reasons unless/until:
1. They themselves are the ones being stuffed in the squad car or
2. Somebody explains how much it costs to lock up fellow citizens...even for crimes as relatively innocuous as cheating in a fishing contest.
BTW, for those who still don't understand, the "up to XX years imprisonment" thing is there mostly to coerce even innocent or wrongly accused defendants to plead guilty as the only rational alterntive to risking a decade or more in prison.
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