United States v. Duane A. Willfong

274 F.3d 1297 (9th Cir. 2001) UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE, v. DUANE A. WILLFONG, DEFENDANT-APPELLANT. No. 00-10227 UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT Argued and Submitted May 16, 2001 Filed Dec. 21, 2001 Kenneth M. Bareilles, Eureka, California, and Duane Willfong, Pro per, for the defendant-appellant. Miquel Rodriguez, Assistant U.S. Attorney, Sacramento, California, for the plaintiff-appellee. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California William B. Shubb, District Judge, Presiding. D.C. No. CR-99-240-WBS. Before: John T. Noonan, Barry G. Silverman, Circuit Judges, and John W. Sedwick, * District Judge. Opinion by Judge Silverman; Dissent by Judge Noonan SILVERMAN, Circuit Judge: 1 Does a logger's refusal to desist logging operations on Forest Service land, after a Forest Service Law Enforcement Officer ordered him to do so at the behest of the Forest Service representative authorized to shutdown the logging operation, constitute "interfering with any forest officer engaged in or on account of the performance of his official duties in the protection, improvement, or administration of the National Forest…

Opinion by Judge SILVERMAN; Dissent by Judge NOONAN

Does a logger’s refusal to desist logging operations on Forest Service land, after a *1299 Forest Service Law Enforcement Officer ordered him to do so at the behest of the Forest Service representative authorized to shutdown the logging operation, constitute “interfering with any forest officer engaged in or on account of the performance of his official duties in the protection, improvement, or administration of the National Forest System” under 36 C.F.R. § 261.3 (a)? We hold that it does, and we affirm.

I. BACKGROUND

The evidence at trial established the following facts: Eel River Saw Mills entered into two contracts with the U.S. Forest Service for the purchase of timber in the Six Rivers National Forest. The events material to this case concern the sale of timber from the Crabtree parcel. Eel River Saw Mills hired appellant Willfong, an independent logging contractor, to perform the logging operations at the Crabtree site. The Forest Service designated Leo-nora Crippa as its sale administrator for the project to monitor the performance of the contract. The Forest Service delegated to Crippa the contractual authority to,…

dissenting:

At one level the issue on appeal is the meaning of a word; on a deeper level it is the right of a person not to be prosecuted for, and convicted of, a crime that he did not commit.

As to the meaning of the word, the court cites a popular college dictionary and follows it up with a thirty-year-old case telling us that the word needs no definition. The meaning deserves more attention than that.

The following summarizes the definitions to be found in Webster’s Third New International Dictionary (1981):

After giving the etymology (from Latin inter and ferire to strike), the dictionary gives as the first definition “to strike one foot against the opposite foot in walking or running — used esp. of horses.” Definition 2 is “to come in collision; to be in opposition; to run at cross purposes: Clash”. Definition 3 is “to take a part in the concerns of others: Intermeddle, Interpose, Intervene.” Definition 4 is obsolete. Definition 5 is “to act reciprocally so as to augment, diminish, or otherwise affect one another — used of waves.” Definition 6 is “to claim substantially the same invention.” Definition 7 is “of a football player: (a) to run ahead of the ballcarrier ... (b)…