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I promised to put in my 2 cents on this ruling. I'm not your lawyer and you shouldn't take any of this to be legal advice. I'll be basing all my comments on the facts. If you are offended by factual comments you might want to pass this by.
First it's very important to understand that the appeals court did not rule that federal mining laws preempt state regulations. What that appeals court did rule was that the lower court in Rinehart needs to consider the possibility that federal mining acts could preempt state dredge regulations to ensure that Brandon's rights were not violated by the dredge moratorium. There is a big difference between those two concepts.
Judge Ochoa, as the appeals court instructed, did consider the possibility of federal preemption in deciding one of the complaints in the combined cases. He ruled that on that single issue the State dredging regulation scheme was an obstruction of the federal intent. Judge Ochoa didn't, and couldn't, decide that for all times in all courts. His ruling only applies to the combined cases and only to the single complaint. There is a lot more to the combined cases than the preemption issue so that dog and pony show still has several more acts to play before it's over.
I think some people have gotten the incorrect idea that the 49ers, WMA or PLP somehow caused this win. The simple fact is that they had nothing to do with the preemption ruling. Brandon Rinehart brought the issue to the appeals court and that was the decision that caused Judge Ochoa to reach his decision.
Please note that Judge Ochoa ruled on the law after the parties had already agreed on the facts. Importantly he relied on the California Granite Rock decision rather than leaving his venue and relying on Spearfish or one of the other foreign judicial notices.
Judge Ochoa made sure his decision was sound and would not be easy to overturn on appeal in the state court system. Despite the sloppiness of both the dredgers complaint and the State's defense Judge Ochoa has kept the court proceedings direct, clean and on track.
It should be noted that it was Judge Ochoa that elicited the critical testimony by the State that they could not anticipate an end date for the moratorium. All his hints to the dredgers fell on deaf ears so he took the bull by the horns himself. It was the most important issue that was lost in all the distracting multiple complaints and lawyer conferences and motions.
My conclusions:
Brandon Rinehart and Judge Ochoa handed you this win. More than likely, in my opinion, all the other complaints in the consolidated dredging cases will be lost. Most were silly distractions from the beginning. Consolidating the cases had no advantage to anyone but the lawyer's billings.
If the Rinehart retrial is successful for Brandon and the verdict is upheld on appeal you will then have court precedence to rely on. Until then any dumazz can go dredging, get cited, argue takings or some other stupid defense and get a judgement against them that will give ammo to the opposition.
Dredge if you want, it's never been unlawful, but please be prepared to stand up like Brandon did and take the money and time hits to argue the single issue of federal preemption. Otherwise you are the fly in the soup and might just derail the whole train. If you really want this thing over and settled help Brandon succeed. His case has always been your best chance.
The consolidated cases will drag on until one side or the other gives up or the Judge gets tired of the nonsense. That will likely be after Brandon's upcoming win.
Any settlement agreement on the dredging regulations will be challenged by the greenies and probably a significant number of dredgers. It may take years to come up with workable dredging regulations. That dance will continue until the greenies all move to Colorado or the economy gets so bad the logic of letting people add gold and money to the economy overcomes the stupidity of the "mining is bad" nonsense taught in California schools and media.
Learn from this experience. There is no advantage to bringing multiple suits with many lawyers. A single winnable defense by a single committed individual will take down the State quicker and cheaper than all the lawyers and organizations in the State. It was always about the right to mine without undue interference. If you want it over and settled keep it simple.
There are Judges with agendas and some decisions are made incorrectly. That is rare but it does happen. The vast majority of cases lost by miners are due to poorly argued cases resulting from poorly understood laws and court procedures. Blaming crooked judges or wasting time and money arguing the same bogus theories over and over again doesn't lead to wins. Stop blaming the system - learn the laws - educate yourself and prosper!
And last but certainly not least please understand:
Brandon Rinehart is the miner's hero. He is the one man that took the ticket, argued the single issue that mattered and won. Learn from that and sing his name in your miner's songs.
Heavy Pans
YOU are our HERO big guy. The first of the locals that are constantly harassed by Fish and Shame and did not bend over for them. The rest cowtowed to the pressure.
ON 12/17/12 I was cited and called Jerry Hobbs asking for help luckily Brandon got to them first LOL I went through 4 court appearances ready to fight if I had to on my own and I made it real clear to the DA through my public defender I wasn't backing down, I'd take it to trial. I had no clue how I was going to do it, with some luck the DA did not pursue my case mainly because of the GREAT public defender I had who had big balls telling him and the judge it was a ridiculous citation, the courts were full to the brim with worse cases then some mining citation and it was dropped. The whole time there was stress, 6-8 months worth or more, my dredging partner also was cited and he was sweating bullets because this could have effected his job, he was scared to death really, poor guy! fish and game gave him a citation for being there in a wet suit, he was not dredging I was.
So I know how it feels to go through the process and the stress it puts on a person and I admire Brandon for holding on and am eternally grateful for that. And like Brandon said it took an army for this to get this far.
I have donated no less then $800 or so dollars last year, I'm a small pea in the pond who's been trying to help finance this thing and I am AMAZED we've made it this far and have watched all the contributions by others, except for awhile back when I was the only one bidding on some ebay gold PLP had auctioning I got a little pissed about that. I'm not tooting my own horn here but theres been a lot of migrating to this whole thing and we all need pats on the backs for not giving up because a lot of people have, I know at least 3 people who took the court deals, payed the fines, did the probation and gave in and it pissed me off but i get it now, its not easy going through this **** for the average person.
Still a long ways to go, no doubt about that.
I'll be dredging again this year just like I have most years since the moratorium except for 2013 when my dredge burned up in a fire, I hate hide and seek but I'll say this much if I do get caught there not taking my gear unless they have me shackled to it and they're gonna have to drag my body and that dredge out together peace and becareful to all, be the square or be the round hole its up to you P
First the state will have to come up with new regs to allow dredging permits.
This will not happen quickly because there are people in the state government that do not want dredging.
Once the new permit rules get published then the greenies will file a lawsuit and a injunction.
Then there are other ways to stop dredging like putting say a $10,000 permit fee on it or requiring that the state safety people inspect all dredging operations and allowing the state inspectors to give high fines for safety violations like they do for job sites.
they also could ban gasoline powered dredges and require propane. and require bio safe oils in the engines. these have already been looked at for boats.
don't expect to dredge for at least 3 to 5 years.
I agree totally with the exception that Judge Ochoa does cite South Dakota vs Lawerence county and that case went directly to federal preemption.
Ruling
On its motions for summary adjudication, the Court finds there is no triable issue of
material fact on the issue of Federal Preemption and that as a matter of law and in
actual fact, that the State's extraordinary scheme of requiring permits and then refusing
to issue them whether and/or being unable to issue permits for years, stands "as an
obstacle to the accomplishment of the full purposes and objectives of Congress" under
Granite Rock and a de facto ban.
The Rinehart court distinguished its case from South Dakota Mining in that sections 5653 and 5653.1, read together or alone, do not expressly prohibit the issuance of suction dredge mining permits.
The main thing we are going to have to worry about will be the continuing attacks by the enviro-groups. What is needed is to find some way to pull their teeth once and for all. ....
You are dead on about KS wild. They destroy jobs, careers & small business. KS wild brags about the logging jobs they have destroyed, and the millions....yes millions.... of dollars they receive from donors. I hope their own ego's will cause them to self implode. I have long felt that someone needs to "join" these groups and cause a little "inside espionage"!
The main thing we are going to have to worry about will be the continuing attacks by the enviro-groups. What is needed is to find some way to pull their teeth once and for all. Their abuse of the legal system has been out of hand for years now and needs to be stopped in the worst way. Their abuse of the EAJA is a prime example. By getting the tax payers to pay for their legal actions it is hurting us all. If the leadership of these groups really wants to bring suit against the government, why don't they do it with donations from their members? ...or would that dig into their high salaries to much? The EAJA was set up to allow the little guy to have a fighting chance. Considering that the CBD alone boasts they have a membership of over 800,000 people, I don't think that qualifies them as "The little guy" any more. Other groups have even larger memberships. If the rank and file members of these groups want to start these fights, let THEM pay for it instead of the American tax payers! If we can make it so these groups can not profit from these lawsuits like they have in the past, most of them will fade away quickly since they've proven it's about the money they can make instead of saving the world anymore.