FAIRBANKS -- The lawyer for the 72-year-old Central man caught up in a legal feud with the National Park Service is arguing in a federal appeals court that park rangers did not have the authority to stop the man on the Yukon River because he wasn't involved in a subsistence activity.
"The issue here is what authority did the National Park Service have to stop vessels on the Yukon River on matters that are not subsistence?" attorney Bill Satterberg of Fairbanks, representing Jim Wilde, said Tuesday.
Satterberg on Tuesday filed the opening brief in Wilde's appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. "The main gist of Wilde's appeal is this: When a government official acts beyond his jurisdiction, the resulting deprivation of liberty is just as unreasonable as an arrest without probable cause," Satterberg wrote in the 59-page brief.
A federal judge in October found Wilde guilty of three misdemeanor charges stemming from a September 2010 run-in with park rangers in the Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve east of Fairbanks. Wilde cursed out two rangers when they tried to stop him for a boat safety inspection on the Yukon River and continued upriver. The rangers pursued him, with one of them drawing a pistol and then a shotgun. Wilde pulled over to the riverbank, where a brief scuffle ensued and the rangers wrestled Wilde to the ground and arrested him. He spent four days in jail.
He filed paperwork with the 9th Circuit in January indicating he would appeal.
Wilde was convicted of interfering with a government agent who was engaged in an official duty, violating a lawful order by a park ranger and operating an unregistered boat. The judge acquitted Wilde of a charge of disorderly conduct. He was fined $2,500.
Wilde's arrest fueled widespread criticism of the Park Service in Alaska.
"The facts of this case indicate the NPS went significantly outside the bounds of NPS's jurisdictional authority in ordering the stop of the Wilde vessel," Satterberg wrote.
Satterberg contends the Park Service only has authority to patrol Alaska rivers under the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act if it involves a matter pertaining to subsistence.
"Basically it deals with the right of the National Park Service to do vessel enforcement activities on the Yukon River that are not related to subsistence," Satterberg told the News-Miner. "What we're saying is the National Park Service, through its regulations, assumed authority that ANILCA did not give it and actually excluded it from."
A federal law passed in 1980, ANILCA created or revised 15 national parks and monuments in Alaska and set aside other public lands for the U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in the form of national forests, refuges and preserves. At the same time, the law protected the continuation of subsistence uses by rural residents of Alaska, including Alaska Natives and non-Natives, on those lands.
The U.S. government has 30 days to file a response to the brief. Prosecutor Stephen Cooper said it would be "premature" to discuss the case until the appeal is over.
Satterberg is not charging Wilde for the appeal. He has said the case and the underlying issue of federal jurisdiction is a "labor of love."
Though he has tried, Satterberg said he has been unsuccessful in getting the state of Alaska to join Wilde's appeal. The state, which long argued that Alaska's navigable waters are immune from federal control because of ANILCA, filed briefs in support of Wilde's case after he was arrested and charged.
"We're flying this airplane by ourselves," Satterberg said. "If we win (the state) will probably take credit for it and if we lose (the state) will probably blame us for it."
By TIM MOWRY
Fairbanks Daily News-Miner