Wyatt
United States v. Wyatt
Opinion
Opinion
FACTS
On July 8, 2002, defendants Wyatt and Smith, members of Wild Rockies Earth First!, ascended and occupied separate elevated platforms in two trees as part of a “tree-sitting” pro- test in the Bitterroot National Forest in Montana. Smith’s plat- form was forty-five feet up in a tree, and Wyatt’s platform was eighty to ninety feet up in a tree. Defendants occupied the platforms for several weeks to protest logging. The protest site was on National Forest Service land.
The protest site had earlier been designated as (1) a pro- posed logging helicopter landing site, and (2) an emergency medical helicopter landing site. At the time of the protest, however, the site could not yet be used for logging helicop- ters; safety standards required an expanded site, which in turn 1 We decide defendants’ remaining contentions by memorandum dispo- sition filed concurrently with this opinion. UNITED STATES v. WYATT 5805 required the removal of about five trees.2 A “natural opening” existed at the site, however, that would allow emergency medical helicopters, or other helicopters, to land (e.g., if the helicopters suffered engine failure).