Daniel Martinez
v.
U.S. Forest Service
Martinez cattle are sold by USFS in Texas
Another chapter in the ongoing saga of a dispute between a rancher and the federal government has been written. Cattle impounded by the U.S. Forest Service were sold at auction in Texas last week.
The grazing allotment dispute between the Martinez family and the Forest Service, which has been simmering on the coals for well over a year, is now in federal court. The Forest Service said the cattle belonging to the Martinez family were illegally grazing on the Pleasant Valley and Hickey allotments in the Clifton Ranger District of the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest.
The cattle are from the Martinez Ranch, northeast of Clifton. The ranch was owned for decades by Abelardo “Abe” Martinez Sr. and was purchased by his three sons, one of whom is Dan, the family's spokesman. Dan contends the Forest Service is wrong and has acted illegally in the impound action.
He successfully filed a petition for an injunction in Graham County Superior Court in late November that kept the cattle from being sold in Dalhart, Texas, on Dec. 1. However, the case was moved to federal court by a U.S. attorney and the injunction expired.
Forest Service spokesman Bob Dyson said in a Dec. 16 news release that 328 head of cattle were sold at a public auction in Dalhart for “about $159,606” on Dec. 15. He said 12 of the cattle died after they were in Texas.
“There was a two-week delay in selling the animals as a result of an Arizona Superior Court injunction, so the animals stayed at the sale barn longer than anticipated.” Dyson said. “Because of the two-week delay, 10 cows and two calves eventually died despite efforts of the sale barn and its veterinarian to treat the animals with antibiotics. There are still over 30 head scheduled to be sold at the Dalhart facility.”
Dyson said money from sale of the cattle “goes toward offsetting costs incurred by the Forest Service, the State of Arizona and the sale barn for gathering and caring for the cattle and completing brand inspections and ear tagging. If there are any receipts left, then the remaining money goes to the previous owner of the cattle.”
That is unlikely to happen. Clifton District Ranger Frank Hayes said impoundment and other related costs come to about $400,000. He said the amount received for the cattle was affected negatively due to the antibiotic treatments, which had to be disclosed to buyers, who must then wait 30 days before the cattle can be slaughtered.
He said a certified letter was sent to Martinez notifying him of the cattle sale and related facts. He said Martinez was also notified that 37 head of cattle that were still in Arizona were shipped to Dalhart on Dec. 16.
Dyson said the Forest Service tried for over a year to have Martinez remove the cattle from federal land. Dan Martinez, who now owns the Martinez Ranch with his two brothers, adamantly disagrees with the Forest Service and said removal of the cattle is a criminal act on the part of the federal agency.
At the heart of the dispute between the USFS and the Martinezes is a Forest Service requirement of the waiver of a grazing permit by Abelardo Sr. in order to have it reissued to his sons. The permit process would involve a reduction in the number of cattle that can be grazed and affect access to parts of the San Francisco River, Zieroth said.
In late July, Dan Martinez said the Forest Service wanted his father to waive certain rights, and his father refused to do so. He said his father has never been involved in the legal system and the Forest Service is trying to “take advantage of these small ranchers.”
Not so, Apache Sitgreaves Forest Supervisor Zieroth said. She said the matter simply comes down to the fact the Martinezes do not have grazing permits. She said the USFS has tried to work with the Martinezes to resolve the issue, but they have refused to comply. She said the Martinezes' Pleasant Valley allotment grazing permit expired in August 2004.
On July 25, the Forest Service sent the Martinezes notices of intent to impound unauthorized livestock. Dan Martinez faxed a copy of the impound notice to The Copper Era. “Refused for Fraud!” was scrawled in large letters on the notice.
Martinez also said he would not resist removal of the cattle but would take action afterward. “I intend to prosecute criminals,” he said. “There's not even a court order. We haven't seen any legal documents.”
Zieroth said a court order was not necessary to impound Martinez's cattle and the Forest Service followed proper procedure leading up to and during the action. She said, “Under federal regulations, unauthorized livestock must be impounded and removed from federal lands, and if they are not redeemed by the owner of the livestock, they are sold at public auction.”
The Forest Service is relieved “to have completed this phase of the lengthy process in removing the cattle from the National Forest,” Zieroth said in the Dec. 16 news release announcing the cattle sale.
She said, “We have been especially concerned for the health and welfare of the cattle so we were a bit disappointed when the injunction delayed their timely disposition. We can now move ahead to authorize a new grazing permittee for the Pleasant Valley Allotment.”
While the case is in federal court, Martinez apparently intends to have his day in state court in Arizona. On that same day the remaining cattle were shipped from Arizona to Texas, The Copper Era received a faxed copy of a letter from Martinez's attorney, Billy W. Boone, to a livestock commission company representative in Dalhart demanding Martinez's cattle be returned to him or face court action in Arizona.
Boone said in his letter, dated Dec. 12, “Rather than avail itself of the legal channels in Arizona courts to challenge the rights which pre-date the Forest Service, the U.S. Forest Service simply stole the cattle without judicial process nor seeking authority of the courts in Arizona. He said the Forest Service circumvented the law by moving the cattle to New Mexico and then to Dalhart.
“Constantly moving the cattle from jurisdiction to jurisdiction when there are auctions in Arizona should make one sit back and wonder why?” Boone writes. “It certainly does not pass the smell test.”
Boone also says, “As you are aware, by letter from Mr. Dan Martinez, that he is the owner and there is a lien on those cattle for $600,000 that pre-dates the U.S. Forest Service's wrongful seizure of the cattle. Demand is hereby made for the return of Mr. Martinez's cattle. If the cattle are either sold or not immediately returned to Mr. Martinez, you along with the auctioneer company will join the individuals form the U.S. Forest Service as defendants in state court in Arizona.”
He adds, “Please be advised that Mr. Martinez has reported the theft of these cattle to the appropriate authorities in Arizona.”
Recall started
Boone does not say in his letter what “proper authorities” he is referring to. They certainly are not authorities from Greenlee County where the cattle were rounded up and impounded. Greenlee County Attorney Derek Rapier and Sheriff Steve Tucker said the cattle impoundment is a federal matter over which they have no jurisdiction. Their stand has angered some people in Greenlee and a recall of both has been started.
Duncan resident Donald Vandell filed an “application for serial number for recall” on behalf of Americans For Property Rights on Dec. 6 with the Greenlee County Elections Director's Office.
Vandell said in the filings on Rapier and Tucker that both “stood by while U.S. Forest Service employees broke Arizona law.” He said both refused to enforce a provision of the Arizona Constitution that says, “No person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law.
In both documents Vandell said, “This property includes cattle. A court order is required to forcibly remove an private property from a citizen of the State of Arizona, United States of America. The U.S. Forest Service has not received a court order from a court in Arizona.”
In a second letter to the editor in today's Copper Era, Rapier reiterates his stand that federal and not local law applies to the case and the county has no jurisdiction in the matter.
Posted by Frank DuBois at 12:53 PM 0 comments Permalink
http://thewesterner.blogspot.com/2005_12_18_thewesterner_archive.html
Martinez cattle case moves to federal court
By Walter Mares, Copper Era managing editor
Published on Wednesday, December 7, 2005 11:09 AM MST
A case involving the impoundment of cattle by the U.S. Forest Service is headed to federal court. That, and not the county superior court, is where Forest Service officials and the Greenlee County Attorney say the matter belongs.
The U.S. Attorney's Office in Albuquerque moved the case to the federal district court in Phoenix on Nov. 29. The move was made after the cattle's owner filed an injunction locally to prevent sale of the cattle, most of which have already been shipped to Texas for sale.
The cattle, belonging to the Martinez family, were impounded by the Forest Service in October and November. The Forest Service said the cattle were illegally grazing on two allotments on Forest Service land near the Martinez Ranch northeast of Clifton. The USFS said the Martinez family's grazing permit for the Pleasant Valley was canceled in 2004 and the Martinezes never had a permit for the Hickey allotment.
Dan Martinez, who is the spokesman for the ranch he owns with his two brothers, adamantly disagrees with the Forest Service and said removal of the cattle is a criminal act on the part of the federal agency.
Waiver of a grazing permit is at the center of the dispute between the USFS and the Martinezes. Abelardo Martinez Sr., who owned the ranch since the 1940s, sold the ranch to his three sons. The Forest Service is requiring Martinez to waive his permit to the agency so it can then be issued to the sons. Dan Martinez, who lives in Santa Fe, N.M., said his father will not waive the grazing permit and the USFS is trying to make him give up his rights.
Apache-Sitgreaves Forest Supervisor Elaine Zieroth said waiver of the Pleasant Valley permit and reissuing it to the Martinez brothers would involve two modifications, and that appears to be what the Martinezes object to. One modification involves decreasing the number of cattle that can be grazed on the Pleasant Valley allotment. The other change involves modifying grazing along the San Francisco River to meet environmental regulations.
Dan Martinez has said in court documents he filed in Graham County Superior Court that the Forest Service has broken the law and stolen the cattle from his private property. Martinez has also filed a deed claim on the Pleasant Valley allotment with the Greenlee County Recorder's Office claiming the allotment is his private property.
The Forest Service said Martinez is wrong. Zieroth told The Copper Era the allotment is not part of the Martinez Ranch. She said it is Forest Service property and Martinez's deed claim is invalid. She said “there is no mechanism” for Martinez to legitimately claim the property as his. She also said Forest Service personnel have not been on the Martinez Ranch itself, other than perhaps to use a county-maintained public road that runs through a corner of the property.
“We had it surveyed and put up markers to make sure we did not go onto the Martinez property,” Zieroth said and reiterated neither the Pleasant Valley nor the Hickey allotments are the Martinez's personal private property.
Greenlee County Attorney Derek Rapier is in agreement. Rapier wrote a letter to the editor in today's Copper Era, which said, “Mr. Martinez appears to rely heavily on a case known as Hage vs. U.S. Mr. Hage made land claims very similar to Mr. Martinez and in 2002, the court ruled against Mr. Hage. The court looked at all of the laws Mr. Hage presented going back to 1785 and found that none of them give the rancher any ownership in federal grazing lands.
“The court also looked at U.S. Supreme Court decisions from as early as 1911 and as recent as 2000 which all ruled that use of public lands never turns into ownership of public lands. These decisions also make it clear that the federal government has exclusive authority to manage federal public lands, including the power to modify permit conditions and reduce herd size.”
Rapier and Greenlee County Sheriff Steve Tucker have been criticized by Martinez and some of his supporters for not intervening and preventing the Forest Service from impounding the cattle. Both maintain the matter is a federal issue in which they have no jurisdiction.
“Although individual county officials have expressed their personal opinions on this issue, under the current state of the law, Greenlee County has no legal authority to get involved in the dispute between the Forest Service and Dan Martinez,” Rapier said. “Although Mr. Martinez believes otherwise, no law or court decision, either federal or state, supports the view that county government has authority over the federal government regarding management of federal lands.”
Around 300 head of cattle that were rounded up and impounded were shipped Dec. 1 to Dalhart, Texas, for sale. A few remain in Arizona. Most of the proceeds will go toward offsetting the USFS's costs of impounding and shipping the cattle, Zieroth said.
Martinez filed a petition for injunction to stop the sale and prevent any more of his cattle from being shipped out of Arizona. He filed the petition in Greenlee County Justice of the Peace #1 Court and was heard by Rocky Manuz. It was forwarded to the Greenlee Superior Court, where Judge Monica Stauffer recused herself. The matter was moved to Judge Corey Sanders in Graham County Superior Court. Sanders granted a 10-day injunction on transport and sale of the Martinez cattle.
Clifton District Ranger Frank Hayes said the actual injunction was signed Nov. 28, the same day Martinez also filed a request to make the injunction permanent and request the livestock be returned to Arizona. Hayes said the Forest Service was not notified until it was served with an order to appear at a Dec. 1 hearing. However, that hearing was canceled.
On Nov. 29, Albuquerque-based U.S. Attorney Howard Thomas removed the case to the federal district court in Phoenix. Hayes said Thomas agreed to keep the injunction on sale and transport of the cattle in place for the meantime.
Forest Service spokesman Bob Dyson, Springerville, said he expects quick action on the case but did not have a specific hearing date. “It's too early to tell as far as a hearing,” he said. “I'm sure the U.S. attorney is working on it now.”
Dyson said federal court is where the matter belongs. “We've always assumed since its (grazing dispute) inception that's where it was headed.
“We've always felt this is a federal action and does not pertain to state or local statutes,” he added.
Dan Martinez said the Forest Service is trampling on his federal and state constitutional rights. He also said the USFS has failed to use due process and did not have a court order to remove the cattle. Zieroth said the Forest Service followed every legal procedure necessary and a court order was not required. “We are doing it under federal laws and regulations that allow us to administratively impound anything that's trespassing on the forest,” she said. Hayes said the Forest Service “has bent over backward” to amicably resolve the dispute with the Martinezes and the cattle impoundment was a last resort. Zieroth said after the notice of impoundment was issued in July, letters were sent to Martinez giving him a final opportunity to remove the cattle, but he chose not to.
http://www.eacourier.com/articles/2005/12/07/local_news/news02.txt
UPDATE:
v.
U.S. Forest Service
Martinez cattle are sold by USFS in Texas
Another chapter in the ongoing saga of a dispute between a rancher and the federal government has been written. Cattle impounded by the U.S. Forest Service were sold at auction in Texas last week.
The grazing allotment dispute between the Martinez family and the Forest Service, which has been simmering on the coals for well over a year, is now in federal court. The Forest Service said the cattle belonging to the Martinez family were illegally grazing on the Pleasant Valley and Hickey allotments in the Clifton Ranger District of the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest.
The cattle are from the Martinez Ranch, northeast of Clifton. The ranch was owned for decades by Abelardo “Abe” Martinez Sr. and was purchased by his three sons, one of whom is Dan, the family's spokesman. Dan contends the Forest Service is wrong and has acted illegally in the impound action.
He successfully filed a petition for an injunction in Graham County Superior Court in late November that kept the cattle from being sold in Dalhart, Texas, on Dec. 1. However, the case was moved to federal court by a U.S. attorney and the injunction expired.
Forest Service spokesman Bob Dyson said in a Dec. 16 news release that 328 head of cattle were sold at a public auction in Dalhart for “about $159,606” on Dec. 15. He said 12 of the cattle died after they were in Texas.
“There was a two-week delay in selling the animals as a result of an Arizona Superior Court injunction, so the animals stayed at the sale barn longer than anticipated.” Dyson said. “Because of the two-week delay, 10 cows and two calves eventually died despite efforts of the sale barn and its veterinarian to treat the animals with antibiotics. There are still over 30 head scheduled to be sold at the Dalhart facility.”
Dyson said money from sale of the cattle “goes toward offsetting costs incurred by the Forest Service, the State of Arizona and the sale barn for gathering and caring for the cattle and completing brand inspections and ear tagging. If there are any receipts left, then the remaining money goes to the previous owner of the cattle.”
That is unlikely to happen. Clifton District Ranger Frank Hayes said impoundment and other related costs come to about $400,000. He said the amount received for the cattle was affected negatively due to the antibiotic treatments, which had to be disclosed to buyers, who must then wait 30 days before the cattle can be slaughtered.
He said a certified letter was sent to Martinez notifying him of the cattle sale and related facts. He said Martinez was also notified that 37 head of cattle that were still in Arizona were shipped to Dalhart on Dec. 16.
Dyson said the Forest Service tried for over a year to have Martinez remove the cattle from federal land. Dan Martinez, who now owns the Martinez Ranch with his two brothers, adamantly disagrees with the Forest Service and said removal of the cattle is a criminal act on the part of the federal agency.
At the heart of the dispute between the USFS and the Martinezes is a Forest Service requirement of the waiver of a grazing permit by Abelardo Sr. in order to have it reissued to his sons. The permit process would involve a reduction in the number of cattle that can be grazed and affect access to parts of the San Francisco River, Zieroth said.
In late July, Dan Martinez said the Forest Service wanted his father to waive certain rights, and his father refused to do so. He said his father has never been involved in the legal system and the Forest Service is trying to “take advantage of these small ranchers.”
Not so, Apache Sitgreaves Forest Supervisor Zieroth said. She said the matter simply comes down to the fact the Martinezes do not have grazing permits. She said the USFS has tried to work with the Martinezes to resolve the issue, but they have refused to comply. She said the Martinezes' Pleasant Valley allotment grazing permit expired in August 2004.
On July 25, the Forest Service sent the Martinezes notices of intent to impound unauthorized livestock. Dan Martinez faxed a copy of the impound notice to The Copper Era. “Refused for Fraud!” was scrawled in large letters on the notice.
Martinez also said he would not resist removal of the cattle but would take action afterward. “I intend to prosecute criminals,” he said. “There's not even a court order. We haven't seen any legal documents.”
Zieroth said a court order was not necessary to impound Martinez's cattle and the Forest Service followed proper procedure leading up to and during the action. She said, “Under federal regulations, unauthorized livestock must be impounded and removed from federal lands, and if they are not redeemed by the owner of the livestock, they are sold at public auction.”
The Forest Service is relieved “to have completed this phase of the lengthy process in removing the cattle from the National Forest,” Zieroth said in the Dec. 16 news release announcing the cattle sale.
She said, “We have been especially concerned for the health and welfare of the cattle so we were a bit disappointed when the injunction delayed their timely disposition. We can now move ahead to authorize a new grazing permittee for the Pleasant Valley Allotment.”
While the case is in federal court, Martinez apparently intends to have his day in state court in Arizona. On that same day the remaining cattle were shipped from Arizona to Texas, The Copper Era received a faxed copy of a letter from Martinez's attorney, Billy W. Boone, to a livestock commission company representative in Dalhart demanding Martinez's cattle be returned to him or face court action in Arizona.
Boone said in his letter, dated Dec. 12, “Rather than avail itself of the legal channels in Arizona courts to challenge the rights which pre-date the Forest Service, the U.S. Forest Service simply stole the cattle without judicial process nor seeking authority of the courts in Arizona. He said the Forest Service circumvented the law by moving the cattle to New Mexico and then to Dalhart.
“Constantly moving the cattle from jurisdiction to jurisdiction when there are auctions in Arizona should make one sit back and wonder why?” Boone writes. “It certainly does not pass the smell test.”
Boone also says, “As you are aware, by letter from Mr. Dan Martinez, that he is the owner and there is a lien on those cattle for $600,000 that pre-dates the U.S. Forest Service's wrongful seizure of the cattle. Demand is hereby made for the return of Mr. Martinez's cattle. If the cattle are either sold or not immediately returned to Mr. Martinez, you along with the auctioneer company will join the individuals form the U.S. Forest Service as defendants in state court in Arizona.”
He adds, “Please be advised that Mr. Martinez has reported the theft of these cattle to the appropriate authorities in Arizona.”
Recall started
Boone does not say in his letter what “proper authorities” he is referring to. They certainly are not authorities from Greenlee County where the cattle were rounded up and impounded. Greenlee County Attorney Derek Rapier and Sheriff Steve Tucker said the cattle impoundment is a federal matter over which they have no jurisdiction. Their stand has angered some people in Greenlee and a recall of both has been started.
Duncan resident Donald Vandell filed an “application for serial number for recall” on behalf of Americans For Property Rights on Dec. 6 with the Greenlee County Elections Director's Office.
Vandell said in the filings on Rapier and Tucker that both “stood by while U.S. Forest Service employees broke Arizona law.” He said both refused to enforce a provision of the Arizona Constitution that says, “No person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law.
In both documents Vandell said, “This property includes cattle. A court order is required to forcibly remove an private property from a citizen of the State of Arizona, United States of America. The U.S. Forest Service has not received a court order from a court in Arizona.”
In a second letter to the editor in today's Copper Era, Rapier reiterates his stand that federal and not local law applies to the case and the county has no jurisdiction in the matter.
Posted by Frank DuBois at 12:53 PM 0 comments Permalink
http://thewesterner.blogspot.com/2005_12_18_thewesterner_archive.html
Martinez cattle case moves to federal court
By Walter Mares, Copper Era managing editor
Published on Wednesday, December 7, 2005 11:09 AM MST
A case involving the impoundment of cattle by the U.S. Forest Service is headed to federal court. That, and not the county superior court, is where Forest Service officials and the Greenlee County Attorney say the matter belongs.
The U.S. Attorney's Office in Albuquerque moved the case to the federal district court in Phoenix on Nov. 29. The move was made after the cattle's owner filed an injunction locally to prevent sale of the cattle, most of which have already been shipped to Texas for sale.
The cattle, belonging to the Martinez family, were impounded by the Forest Service in October and November. The Forest Service said the cattle were illegally grazing on two allotments on Forest Service land near the Martinez Ranch northeast of Clifton. The USFS said the Martinez family's grazing permit for the Pleasant Valley was canceled in 2004 and the Martinezes never had a permit for the Hickey allotment.
Dan Martinez, who is the spokesman for the ranch he owns with his two brothers, adamantly disagrees with the Forest Service and said removal of the cattle is a criminal act on the part of the federal agency.
Waiver of a grazing permit is at the center of the dispute between the USFS and the Martinezes. Abelardo Martinez Sr., who owned the ranch since the 1940s, sold the ranch to his three sons. The Forest Service is requiring Martinez to waive his permit to the agency so it can then be issued to the sons. Dan Martinez, who lives in Santa Fe, N.M., said his father will not waive the grazing permit and the USFS is trying to make him give up his rights.
Apache-Sitgreaves Forest Supervisor Elaine Zieroth said waiver of the Pleasant Valley permit and reissuing it to the Martinez brothers would involve two modifications, and that appears to be what the Martinezes object to. One modification involves decreasing the number of cattle that can be grazed on the Pleasant Valley allotment. The other change involves modifying grazing along the San Francisco River to meet environmental regulations.
Dan Martinez has said in court documents he filed in Graham County Superior Court that the Forest Service has broken the law and stolen the cattle from his private property. Martinez has also filed a deed claim on the Pleasant Valley allotment with the Greenlee County Recorder's Office claiming the allotment is his private property.
The Forest Service said Martinez is wrong. Zieroth told The Copper Era the allotment is not part of the Martinez Ranch. She said it is Forest Service property and Martinez's deed claim is invalid. She said “there is no mechanism” for Martinez to legitimately claim the property as his. She also said Forest Service personnel have not been on the Martinez Ranch itself, other than perhaps to use a county-maintained public road that runs through a corner of the property.
“We had it surveyed and put up markers to make sure we did not go onto the Martinez property,” Zieroth said and reiterated neither the Pleasant Valley nor the Hickey allotments are the Martinez's personal private property.
Greenlee County Attorney Derek Rapier is in agreement. Rapier wrote a letter to the editor in today's Copper Era, which said, “Mr. Martinez appears to rely heavily on a case known as Hage vs. U.S. Mr. Hage made land claims very similar to Mr. Martinez and in 2002, the court ruled against Mr. Hage. The court looked at all of the laws Mr. Hage presented going back to 1785 and found that none of them give the rancher any ownership in federal grazing lands.
“The court also looked at U.S. Supreme Court decisions from as early as 1911 and as recent as 2000 which all ruled that use of public lands never turns into ownership of public lands. These decisions also make it clear that the federal government has exclusive authority to manage federal public lands, including the power to modify permit conditions and reduce herd size.”
Rapier and Greenlee County Sheriff Steve Tucker have been criticized by Martinez and some of his supporters for not intervening and preventing the Forest Service from impounding the cattle. Both maintain the matter is a federal issue in which they have no jurisdiction.
“Although individual county officials have expressed their personal opinions on this issue, under the current state of the law, Greenlee County has no legal authority to get involved in the dispute between the Forest Service and Dan Martinez,” Rapier said. “Although Mr. Martinez believes otherwise, no law or court decision, either federal or state, supports the view that county government has authority over the federal government regarding management of federal lands.”
Around 300 head of cattle that were rounded up and impounded were shipped Dec. 1 to Dalhart, Texas, for sale. A few remain in Arizona. Most of the proceeds will go toward offsetting the USFS's costs of impounding and shipping the cattle, Zieroth said.
Martinez filed a petition for injunction to stop the sale and prevent any more of his cattle from being shipped out of Arizona. He filed the petition in Greenlee County Justice of the Peace #1 Court and was heard by Rocky Manuz. It was forwarded to the Greenlee Superior Court, where Judge Monica Stauffer recused herself. The matter was moved to Judge Corey Sanders in Graham County Superior Court. Sanders granted a 10-day injunction on transport and sale of the Martinez cattle.
Clifton District Ranger Frank Hayes said the actual injunction was signed Nov. 28, the same day Martinez also filed a request to make the injunction permanent and request the livestock be returned to Arizona. Hayes said the Forest Service was not notified until it was served with an order to appear at a Dec. 1 hearing. However, that hearing was canceled.
On Nov. 29, Albuquerque-based U.S. Attorney Howard Thomas removed the case to the federal district court in Phoenix. Hayes said Thomas agreed to keep the injunction on sale and transport of the cattle in place for the meantime.
Forest Service spokesman Bob Dyson, Springerville, said he expects quick action on the case but did not have a specific hearing date. “It's too early to tell as far as a hearing,” he said. “I'm sure the U.S. attorney is working on it now.”
Dyson said federal court is where the matter belongs. “We've always assumed since its (grazing dispute) inception that's where it was headed.
“We've always felt this is a federal action and does not pertain to state or local statutes,” he added.
Dan Martinez said the Forest Service is trampling on his federal and state constitutional rights. He also said the USFS has failed to use due process and did not have a court order to remove the cattle. Zieroth said the Forest Service followed every legal procedure necessary and a court order was not required. “We are doing it under federal laws and regulations that allow us to administratively impound anything that's trespassing on the forest,” she said. Hayes said the Forest Service “has bent over backward” to amicably resolve the dispute with the Martinezes and the cattle impoundment was a last resort. Zieroth said after the notice of impoundment was issued in July, letters were sent to Martinez giving him a final opportunity to remove the cattle, but he chose not to.
http://www.eacourier.com/articles/2005/12/07/local_news/news02.txt
UPDATE:
The Environmentalists threatened the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service by way of suit in a letter and is now considered evidence in a Civil RICO Action and are now looking at serving prison sentences of 20 years each if convicted, there is evidence of Conspiracy to Commit Fraud and Racketeering as a Organized Crime Syndicate.
