[at-l] Karen Wood shooting (was: hunting/Maine)

["Bucky" <mfuller@somtel.com>]

Several people here have brought up the Karen Wood shooting from
around nine years ago. To save time, what follows is a slightly
edited and expanded message of mine from about two years ago
on this very topic:

[Start of excerpt]

Bachelor Number Two wrote:
> Bucky <mfuller@somtel.com> wrote:
> >Bachelor Number Two wrote:
> 
> <snip of back and forth re: this case>
> 
> >Not quite. I've posted details elsewhere.
> 
> Sorry, I've not seen your post.  The details here are as I remember
> them.  At the time I was living between Massachusetts and New
> Hampshire and the case caused quite a stir in the backcountry
> community.
> 
> For my own re-edification, what details are different than my
> recollection?

[Beginning of repost]

Bachelor Number One wrote:
> Bachelor Number Three wrote:
> 
> > Well as I remember, the woman was hanging laundry in her back yard which
> > makes the whole thing a little more plausible.  I am curious though as to
> > what others might consider a fair out come to this kind of situation.
> 
> As I recall, he mistook her white mittens for a deer's tail!

Yes. In fact, the hunter claimed that he saw "two flags" bounding
upward. He aimed about where he thought one of them would come down
and shot the woman (Karen Wood) in the chest.

It was not determined in the investigation what she was doing in
her back yard. I do not recall that there was any evidence that she
was hanging laundry at the time. My impression from the trial coverage
was that she was approaching the hunter to tell him (i.e. chew him out)
that he was too close to her house, and was too stupid to either: a)
hail him from first the back steps, b) put on some orange, and c) not
approach a hunter while waving around large white mittens.

At the time he shot, he was actually just beyond the 300' minimum
distance from an occupied dwelling, and was not on her property.

The hunter (I forget his name) claimed to have seen a buck nearby
a minute or so before seeing the "flags." Wardens and investigators
combed the area and only found evidence of what *could* have been
a deer hoofprint of unknown age. No hair or scat was found.

Furthermore, the hunter did not have a doe permit. So even if you
were to ignore the stupidity of shooting at a deer's bum, and buy
his claim that he saw what he thought was a deer (his eyesight
wasn't too good, as I recall), he took the shot not knowing whether
his target was a buck! At the very least, the government should have
been able to nail him on this fact.

He was also hunting with a scoped .30-06, which is a foolish and
dangerous choice considering he was in a thickly-wooded area
near a housing development. Glass sights actually limit your
field of vision and provide a very shaky sight picture when trying
to fire a fast offhand shot.

> > Do you think the hunter should be punished and to what extent.
> 
> At the very least, the permenent loss of his hunting licence, as well as a
> heavy fine for neglegence.

He should have had his jewels nailed to a burning barn, then
handed a rusty jackknife. Nothing less.

Unfortunately, he performed very well at the trial and gained
the jury's sympathy. To them, he came across as a nice enough
old fart, and besides, she was some just out-of-state yuppie
transplant (her mouthy husband didn't help matters, IMO).

[End of repost]

> I know that the salient features are correct.  The hunter hit what he
> was aiming at....a woman in her own yard that he felt was a deer.
> 
> >> Now, let's leave aside the fact that this bozo was shooting into this
> >> woman's own backyard with her kids near by.  I have seen women, and I
> >> have seen deer.  I've seen both  from a distance and up close.  I can
> >> personally attest that women look nothing like deer regardless of the
> >> distance or a pair of mittens in the pocket...
> 
> >Really? What if you're looking through thick brush and see what appears
> >to be a "flag" moving upward some 180 feet away? What if the movement
> >was consistent with a bounding deer?
> 
> What if the movement was consistent with a bounding deer?  If a hunter
> can not identify a target with 100% certainty, then that hunter has no
> business even lining his gun up for the shot much less squeezing the
> trigger.  I know that you essentially agree with this from your
> paragraph below, but I don't think that it can be stated often
> enough...

My point is that under the right circumstances, a woman can indeed
look like a deer; even to a relatively high confidence level. This
doesn't absolve the hunter of responsibility, nor am I saying that
some confidence level below 100% is permissible when it comes to
throwing rounds downrange in a hunting situation. In such an activity,
one can afford to be patient and thorough to ensure correct target
identification.

> >I don't doubt that everything he saw pointed to the movement as being
> >that of a deer. The problem is that he didn't have enough information
> >to positively identify it as such. He couldn't even tell whether the
> >deer was a buck or a doe; an important question for one without a doe
> >permit.
> 
> >> This bastard got away scot free after killing this woman, leaving her
> >> husband a widower and her kids without a mother.  The defense argued
> >> that she should have been wearing orange.
> 
> >They did? I don't recall any such argument, and I followed the trial
> >in the local paper. The defense argued that a "reasonable person"
> >would have concluded that what the hunter saw looked like a deer;
> >enough so to consider the shooting an accident, rather than negligence.
> 
> As I recall the press coverage from Massachusetts and New Hampshire
> papers, (sorry, I didn't read anything from Maine then...)  including
> the hunter friendly Manchester Union Leader, a major factor in the
> defense was the fact that the woman was outdoors during hunting season
> without wearing orange.  This lack, of course, was presumably woven
> into the portion of the defense you have noted.  As I recall, the
> defense also played on the juries sympathies with regard to local vs
> newcomer...

It was certainly well-known that she wasn't wearing blaze orange,
in addition to committing the even bigger mistake of wearing large
white mittens; "shoot me" signs if there ever were any. The defense
couldn't say that the shooting was excusable because the woman
dressed foolishly (i.e. blame the victim) any more than someone could
excuse a rape of a woman who foolishly got all liquored up at a wild
frat party. What the defense did do was point out that the mittens
she was wearing could've looked like deer tails from where the
hunter was standing. The defense was based on what the hunter saw,
not what the victim did.

Perhaps this is a difference without distinction to most of you.

> >I don't remember any attempt on their part to blame the victim.
> 
> see above...
> 
> >>                                            She was in her own damned
> >> yard.  The defense won in an incredible travesty...
> 
> >Well, yes. They did indeed.
> 
> Sad, eh?  This case also sends a chilling message to nonhunters...

In Maine, as is probably true in most parts of the country, a
person can hunt on another's private land unless the landowner
actively keeps it posted. Asking for permission first is good
form, but is not required by law. 

The property rights movement picked up a lot of steam as a result
of this outcome. A lot more land has been posted "no hunting" in
the past five years, and what constitutes the posting of land has
been eased somewhat. These I consider to be good things.

[end of excerpt]

--
mfuller@somtel.com; Northern Franklin County, Maine
The Constitution is the white man's ghost shirt.  }>:-/> --->


* From the Appalachian Trail Mailing List | For info http://www.hack.net/lists *

==============================================================================