AR-News: (US-WV) ACLU sues for hunting on Sunday

[Michael Markarian]

http://www.wvgazette.com/section/News/2003072135

The Charleston Gazette
July 22, 2003

ACLU sues for hunting on Sunday

State can't prohibit activity on private land, group says

By Scott Finn
STAFF WRITER

State residents have a constitutional right to hunt on private lands on 
Sunday, according to a lawsuit filed Monday by the American Civil 
Liberties Union of West Virginia.

The lawsuit seeks to overturn a ban on Sunday hunting that Ritchie 
County voters approved last year, and could affect similar bans 
throughout West Virginia.

The state constitution ensures the right to hunt on private lands any 
day of the week, said Jason Huber, lawyer for the ACLU.

Huber filed the lawsuit in Ritchie Circuit Court on behalf of the 
Hartley Hill Hunt Club, a private group with about 50 members that 
leases 2,000 acres in the county.

Huber himself hunts on the property. He expects the suit to eventually 
wind up before the state Supreme Court.

Residents in 41 of West Virginia's 55 counties have voted to ban Sunday 
hunting in their counties. The 14 counties that still allow it have not 
put the issue before their residents for a vote.

The lawsuit says that individuals cannot be deprived of the use of their 
property for one day every week, under Article III, Section 22, of the 
state constitution. That section provides for the right to bear arms for 
"lawful hunting and recreational use."

Huber said that the state has no compelling interest to prevent hunting 
on private land. "There is no rational justification for outlawing 
hunting on Sunday, as opposed to any other day of the week," Huber said.

Many members of the West Virginia Farm Bureau believe differently, said 
Les Shoemaker of Augusta, the group's lobbyist.

He said that the state has weak trespassing laws, meaning that hunters 
often cross onto property without permission.

"Sunday is the one day our farm families don't want to have to police 
their own property," he said.

He also said West Virginia's "rural values" have been expressed through 
overwhelming votes in opposition to Sunday hunting.

"The voters of that county spoke. We should respect their decision," he 
said.

Huber said the ballot language confused many voters. It read: "Shall 
hunting on Sunday be authorized in Ritchie County?"

Some people thought they were banning Sunday hunts on public lands, he 
said, but that already was illegal.

The suit asks for another referendum in Ritchie County, if the judge 
doesn't choose to reinstate Sunday hunting. If successful, the lawsuit 
could force counties across the state to hold new referendums.

Before 2001, Sunday hunting was prohibited in the state. Legislators 
passed a law that year, which they thought would keep it illegal unless 
a county's voters said they wanted it.

Instead, the new law meant that Sunday hunting was allowed, unless a 
county's voters specifically rejected it.

Hunters and the ACLU may appear to be strange bedfellows, but they both 
have a deep respect for the constitution, said Andrew Schneider, the 
state group's executive director.

"People who think the ACLU is a liberal organization have a misguided 
view of what we do. We defend people's rights and liberties as defined 
by the constitution," he said. "Sometimes, the rights of the left are 
being violated, sometimes the rights of the right are. We don't pick and 
choose."