What Does Innocent Mean?
On any given day lately there are state and national news stories about courts being tied up by what appear to be non-valid arguments over the actual or imagined guilt of accused criminals in and out of prison. Such lawsuits have become a whole field for legal eagles. I covered that subject in an interesting column on April 4th of 1996, twenty one years ago. This is it:
Some people in Canada … and in the U.S., are upset because Banff Park Rangers shot the wrong bears last summer. I feel about that much the same way I feel about the “wrong” guy being sent to prison for some dastardly crime. In 40 years of the news business, I’ve never seen convincing evidence of a “truly innocent man” being sent to the pen. Officials are dealing with a typical “innocent man case” in Great Falls right now. Several years ago, two very worthless males were involved in rape-murder. The one who turned states evidence and helped convict his partner has now recanted and says he actually killed the girl. The other one, still down in the pen wants out … NOW! “because he is innocent.”
Both these sickos were illegally with the girl, drinking, and doing all the other wrong things involved in that situation. Who “actually” killed the victim doesn’t really matter. Both of them should have been hanged and the rope burned, but the ACLU and other weep-easys would have us believe the prisons are full of innocent people. “OH PSHAW” I say … and add a big portion of bovine plop.
Back to the grizzlies. Last September, six unsuspecting tourists in the Lake Louise Campground were clawed and bitten by roving grizzly bears and rangers gunned down a couple of them still hanging around next morning at shootin’ light. Now DNA testing shows the executed bears weren’t the ones who tore up the tourists. Two other griz were captured later and Chief Warden Haney says those two were the ones attacking people. Not knowing that at the time however rangers took the second pair into the British Columbia wilderness and turned them loose where they now may possibly attack humans another day.
See the parallel? I think any grizzly bear that has lost its fear of man to the point it goes wandering around in a very busy campground, has exceeded the limits of tolerance and needs to be removed permanently. Anyone who likes the idea of grizzlies sniffing around either the flap on their tent or the flap on their long johns, can write support letters to the U.S. or Canadian Park Service—or to the Hungry Horse News editor. Don’t write to me because I’ll be starting any day now to work on income tax.
New subject! Dictionaries say when the word “body” is used in the context of something being dead … a body is the remains of a human. I bring up this somewhat morbid subject because lately the media reports coming out of the Yellowstone Park area are calling wolf carcasses “bodies”. A news release last week said “the body” of the dead wolf was being sent to a laboratory for autopsy to determine the cause of death. For crying out loud! You got a wolf carcass with a big bore bullet hole in it, you know he didn’t die from smokin’ too much. We expect to soon receive AP reports of wolf deaths which will include details of where the embalming and final services will be held.
Each animal, including homo sapiens, has a niche in the scheme of things, but I don’t think it helps for those involved in the “Yellowstone Wolf Project” to try and make the wolves more human. Let’s call a carcass a carcass.
G. George Ostrom is a national award-winning Hungry Horse News columnist. He lives in Kalispell.