Quinn v. Stone

OPINION OF THE COURT

A. LEON HIGGINBOTHAM, Jr., Circuit Judge.

In 1723, England responded to an upsurge of poaching by passing the Black Act, prescribing the death penalty for those who, in any of the King’s forests, “unlawfully and wilfully hunt, wound, kill, destroy, or steal any red or fallow deer.”1 Even for its time, such a penalty was harsh, but the hunting of deer was a matter of vital economic concern for that agrarian society. While deer-hunting is no longer punishable by death and is indeed now seen more as a sport than as a livelihood, the issues presented by this appeal touch upon a…