When Burt Rico was caught using a deer feeder equipped with lights while hunting in Louisiana, he was slapped with a $1,051 fine and sentenced to 60 days in jail. He was cited for hunting without a big-game license, failing to wear hunter orange and hunting deer with an artificial light.

Until he was cited, he didn’t know he had done anything wrong, he claims.
Rico’s case isn’t an isolated one. According to a new report by the Texas Public Policy Foundation, thousands of people are being prosecuted for environmental crimes every day they didn’t know were even on the books. They’ve been threatened, fined and thrown in jail. The trend is especially prominent along the Gulf Coast, but is becoming a national issue.

As head of a family-run business in North Carolina that takes customers on deep-sea fishing trips, Gould is just one of a growing group who say they have suffered at the hands of regulators imposing stiff fines and disproportionate penalties. The government tells him when, where and what he can catch.

“Total control of your life – that’s what they want,” said Gould. “You take away the incentive for somebody to do something bit by bit by bit. It’s like peeling the layers off an onion. You can only peel so much and then you don’t have any onion left.”


When it comes to environmental laws, the states getting hit the hardest are the five that border the Gulf of Mexico -- Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. Among them, nearly 1,000 laws criminalizing activities along the coast have been put on the books, Texas Public Policy Foundation analyst Vikrant Reddy said.
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....in his book “Three Felonies a Day,” Boston-based attorney Harvey Silverglate says criminal laws have become dangerously disconnected and that prosecutors can pin crimes on anyone.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/01/...test=latestnews

The laws in this country are getting ridiculous!