By Chelyen Davis
RICHMOND—A Senate committee has advanced a bill to strip the authority to search from state game wardens.
The bill, from Sen. Richard Stuart, R–Stafford, says that conservation police officers “may not stop a person for the purpose of determining compliance with the laws, rules, and regulations of the Commonwealth or its localities without reasonable suspicion of criminal activity.”
It also prevents conservation officers from inspecting game and fish to enforce bag and creel limits, unless they first make an arrest.
Stuart said that under current law, conservation officers are essentially violating the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which protects against unreasonable searches.
Other police agencies, he said, can’t stop people and search them without some suspicion of criminal activity.
“In the case of conservation police officers, that’s not true. For some reason or another, the General Assembly gave our citizens’ constitutional right, our Fourth Amendment right away when it comes to conservation police officers,” Stuart said. “They’re not game wardens anymore. They have full police powers, they enforce all laws of the commonwealth. I would submit to this committee that every other police agency in the commonwealth has to abide by the standard that has been set out except this one agency.”
As he did when speaking on other bills related to game wardens last week, Stuart said this bill was prompted by a situation in his district, in which he felt a game warden was harassing hunters undeservedly. After that warden was transferred out of the area, Stuart said, a group of game wardens arrived to check hunters when hunting season started.
“For a solid week there were 10 wardens chasing hunters. I had one retired police officer tell me he was stopped three times in one day,” Stuart said. “If you’re driving in your car down Broad Street and you have an orange hat on, they could stop you and detain you because it appears that you’re hunting.”
He said he has heard of similar problems at Lake Anna and Smith Mountain Lake.
Roy Enslow, who owns a marina at Smith Mountain Lake, said he doesn’t think conservation officers are malicious, but that their enforcement behavior changed when their name changed from game wardens to conservation police officers.
Now, Enslow said, people tell him they get stopped for boat checks three times in a day.
The Virginia Sheriff’s Association supported the bill, but some other police groups did not.
Kevin Carroll of the Fraternal Order of Police said that the ability to stop hunters is “an important tool that they have in order to regulate game.
“If we take it away it’s going to open it up for even more abuse than already happens,” Carroll said.
Curtis Colgate, a member of the Board of Game and Inland Fisheries, said wildlife isn’t in a hunter’s or fisherman’s possession until it has been properly checked.
“There’s no way for a game warden to be able to determine if game has been properly harvested if they can’t go check a bag or creel limit,” Colgate said.
While Stuart said conservation officers could monitor illegal activity by watching hunters and fishermen to see if they catch too many animals or commit another violation, James Slaughter, president of the Virginia Conservation Police Officers Association, said that was unrealistic, and could take hours.
The Senate Courts of Justice Committee voted 9–6 to approve Stuart’s bill. It will now go to the full Senate and then, if passed, to the House.
Chelyen Davis: 804/343-2245
cdavis@freelancestar.com
