Got a ticket at National Park, will it hurt GC?

I

ImmigrateMe

Registered Users (C)
I didn't know that one is not supposed to pick flowers, rocks at any national park. I got a ticket for picking some pebbles from a river at Yellow Stone a week ago.

The fine is $200. I can decide whether to pay the fine and get it over with or argue in court. I feel that I should get a warning instead of a ticket since I really really didn't know the rule. If I had known it, I would have never picked anything.

The header of the ticket says "United States District Court Violation Notice", sounds serious.

Should I plead not guilty and argue in court? If I loose, do I still get to pay $200 or more?

Will it hurt my 485?

Thanks!

---------------------------------------------------------------------
WAC02-046
 
If you want to go to court and face the trial then you need to think that do you have sufficient time since most probably you need to go to local city court of yellow stone.

Now question is did you ever saw any notice or warning at any noticeable place which says that "Do not blah blah ...." or was there any document which was given to you at given point of time which states that if not then you can argue that since there was nothing like this otherwise I would not pick any thing and you may get away with just a warning.

But it will not effect your GC these things are normal, I have seen ppl getting GC with DUI cases so don't worry in terms of GC.
 
You should consider getting a legal advice on this. In my opinion, though, a simple infraction would not have any bearing on the Green Card process. Misdemeanors and felonies, on the other hand, most likely will have a greater impact, up to inability to immigrate legally either for a certain period of time or for life.

As an example, with a DUI or DWI on the driving record, you would have to bend backwards so your I-485 would be even considered for positive adjudication.

***

While it is off topic on this forum, I shall give you some pointers. Pleading 'not guilty' in the court and subsequently losing the case, not necessarily results in a fine which equals to the amount of the initial bail. Generally, though, you would have to pay the court fees in addition to the fine. And court may impose either a lesser or greater fine depending on how you present yourself. For example, if you manage to piss off the judge with inarticulate or unintelligent argument, you should be assured of a much greater fine, up to the maximum allowed extent.

Before going to court, try to research the matter. There is plenty of hands-on knowledge in this field...
 
Originally posted by ImmigrateMe
I didn't know that one is not supposed to pick flowers, rocks at any national park. I got a ticket for picking some pebbles from a river at Yellow Stone a week ago.

The fine is $200. I can decide whether to pay the fine and get it over with or argue in court. I feel that I should get a warning instead of a ticket since I really really didn't know the rule. If I had known it, I would have never picked anything.

The header of the ticket says "United States District Court Violation Notice", sounds serious.

Should I plead not guilty and argue in court? If I loose, do I still get to pay $200 or more?

Will it hurt my 485?

Thanks!

---------------------------------------------------------------------
WAC02-046
Click to expand...
How exactly did this happen. were
there any cameras ? how did they notice you picking pebbles, was there
a guard? It sounds stupid and speaks
volumes for this so called free country
that you could get a ticket for just
picking pebbles. Economy is bad and
US needs money, especially federal
and state governments. If they
can make money they will. I guess
this is suffiicient reason to not want
GC and go back to home country.
At least nobody will give you ticket
for picking few pebbles. I was also
thinking of going to yellowstone, but
may change mind now. Who wants
to go to a place where you could get
a ticket for picking some pebbles.
 
Look at this like this, for you the most imporant thing is geting yr GC without any hassel. So 200 bucks is no great deal, so since u are already worried abt how this insignificant thing might affect your GC , no matter what advice you get the fear will remain, so the best advice is pay up and forget it. Atleast the positive outcome of it is
1. u will be less stressed
2. Yow will sleep weel in the knowledge that it will not afect yr GC
3. Anyway it will cost u to go to a local court to argue

But a middle path may be contest the ticket by writing to the authorites and asking for a pardon, or reduce the fine. Am sure u will get a good response

BTW I am contesting 2 tickets in oakland court and have a scheduled court hearing coming up, but I can tell u for sure, it in no way damn affects yr GC unless it is a felony or criminal misconduct

So take your pick, if u have otehr worries now then pay, but if u want to be bull headed then fight..but whatever the outcome my 2 cents is that It will not affect yr GC in any way, even if u lose is court
 
keep records for citizenship

I know for a fact that at the time of citizenship one can (and people are) being asked to produce paperwork that shows that they have cleared outstanding fines, and show what laws they broke in the past 10 (yes 10!) years.

so go to court, or pay the fine - whatever - but keep the paperwork.

and start looking for other infractions and paperwork associated with those.

-longwait
 
Your GC will be affected only if you have broken a criminal law. Petty things like speeding tickets, etc dont really matter much. Unfortunately, being an immigrant/non-immigrant is bad in this country. So, if I were you, I'd just pay $200 to avoid any kind of hassles and forget about it.

-fb-
 
*SPAM* Re: Re: Got a ticket at National Park, will it hurt GC?

Shantanusfather,

This is obviously not the correct forum for this, but I feel pretty stongly on this issue and wanted to voice my opinion to people like immigrateMe and you, who obviously don't care for the ecology.

Can you imagine what would happen if every visitor picked a few pebbles from national parks how many pebbles/flowers would be left after some time for other visitors to enjoy? Give the ecology a break, the reason they have these huge fines are to discourage that person and anyone who hears the story to not damage the ecology in the future.

The ecology is extremely fragile as it is, and doesn't need further help from ham handed people. A couple of cases in point are the introduction of the Dingo in Australia and snails in California.

My suggestion: if you can't respect the ecology for what it is, Yellowstone is better off not having you as a visitor.

As far as fighting the ticket it is concerned, I stongly doubt you will win, unless the ranger who gave you the ticket is blind and gave you a ticket out of spite. Or you can prove that you were not in the park in the first place. These tickets are unlike speeding tickets where you can file for discovery and delay the proceedings or draw light on the speed gun being uncalibrated. Pay the fine and don't disturb the flora and funa the next time you go to the park!

Originally posted by Shantanusfather

a guard? It sounds stupid and speaks
volumes for this so called free country
that you could get a ticket for just
picking pebbles.

for picking few pebbles. I was also
thinking of going to yellowstone, but
may change mind now. Who wants
to go to a place where you could get
a ticket for picking some pebbles.
Click to expand...
 
Re: *SPAM* Re: Re: Got a ticket at National Park, will it hurt GC?

Originally posted by 140_takes_4ever
Shantanusfather,

This is obviously not the correct forum for this, but I feel pretty stongly on this issue and wanted to voice my opinion to people like immigrateMe and you, who obviously don't care for the ecology.
.
.
you can file for discovery and delay the proceedings or draw light on the speed gun being uncalibrated. Pay the fine and don't disturb the flora and funa the next time you go to the park!
Click to expand...

140,

You are right. It is a good rule. But visitors may not be knowledgeable about this area at all. They pick a place and go there. Picking pebbles, unlike DUI, is not illegal 'everywhere'. I honestly didnt know that this was indeed a rule till now - and I have been to that place.

Like you said, this original poster doesnt stand a chance in court. He would have to say that he infact picked pebbles and plead ignorance. It might reduce the penalty or eliminate it, but the ticket will remain. So my advice is to add a sincere apology along with a $200/- check.

It wont affect GC. GC is affected when you are taken in, FPed, indicted etc - mostly criminal matters.
 
Here is what happened that day.

Here is what happened that day.

Two friends and I were driving on the road along the Lamar River to the north east entrence of Yellow Stone National Park. There is a view point turn out. THERE IS NO SIGN ANYWHERE SAYING DO NOT PICK ROCKS FROM THE RIVER OR PICK WILD FLOWERS. We pulled over and took some picutures. BTW, the view is amazing! There is a short trail to the river. We went down to the river. The water is shallow. There is a pebble bar in the middle of the river. We went across the river half way and reached the pebble bar. They are typical river pebbles, nothing fancy.

We started to pick interesting looking pebbles. Each picked about 6-7. I saw a Park Ranger Patrol car pulled over to the view turn out where we parked. I even pointed to a friend telling him there was a patrol officer. We looked at it and continue our picking.

Twenty minutes later, we went back to our car and ready to go back to camp site. I saw the patrol car about 60 meters down the road. Right after we started the engine and pull out the parking, the patrol car dashed toward us. The officer indicated us to stop.

She said she saw us picking pebbles in the river and asked us whether we knew if it against the law to pick anything from National Park. We said we didn't know and we are from other country and didn't know such common sense thing to Amercians. She said we were supposed to know this before we came to National Park, plus it was said in the newspaper we got when we first enter the south gate of the park and we were supposed to read that newspaper. Actually at the entrance, the guy didn't give us the paper at first, it was me who asked for those papers.

She said since it was our first time and we didn't know the rule, she was going to give us a warming. She got our driver licenses and went back to her car to check something. She then came back and told us to put all the pebbles in one pile. We did. She said she would have to check with her supervisor. When she came back again, she said she had to give us a ticket since we picked too much pebbles. She then asked each of us to get out of the car one at a time and stood in front of her car, where her camera can see, to answer questions like whose idea it was to pick pebbles, who picked the most, why picked, where else has picked, etc.

All together we picked about 20-25. She felt she gave us a break by noting giving us 3 tickets. I don't know how She got the feeling that some of the pebbles were picked from other river and we didn't show her all.

We begged, we apologized, we argued, didn't help. She insisted that we should have known the law before coming here.

I feel she should have shout at us not to pick the pebbles when she saw us from the parking lot. The "wait-to-capture" was terrible. It ruined the rest of our vacation. The rest of the trip, our topic was always what we could have done or said the other day to avoid the ticket.

This incidence teaches me something: know the rule before you do anything in this country, but in the mean time, there is always room to get around in the system; always be extremely humble before the officers.

Thank you all for the response. I appreciate it! I think we are going to pay the $200 and be smart next time.

---------------------------------------------------------------
WAC02-046
 
It was wrong on officer part why she waited for crime to happen in first place. and it is not a good practice to put a fine print some where in a 10 page newspaper and then fine a guy for $200. Now next step could be that you can not drink a sip of water from the river and get away unless and until you pee right there.

If it is so important then why city did not put warning signs like on highway speed limit or warning or carpool lane.
 
140 takes for ever and the rst who care for the ecology

Have you just thought how many trees will you be cutting down by using one roll of toilet paper, and the US is the largest eco econtaminator in the whole world

While i do strongly feel for the ecology, let's not try and suck up to this country for everything that it does, no doubt some things are great here but let's not say that we just saw god here!

My 2 cents

and before this blows out into an angry ecchange of words, my intention is not to question eco imposement out here but is to question our own thinking which in this case is quiet sad since the person just picked a few flowers and had an officer observe doing it and then geting caught...talk abt CAPITALISM herez an example
 
Re: Here is what happened that day.

Originally posted by ImmigrateMe
Here is what happened that day.



I feel she should have shout at us not to pick the pebbles when she saw us from the parking lot. The "wait-to-capture" was terrible. It ruined the rest of our vacation. The rest of the trip, our topic was always what we could have done or said the other day to avoid the ticket.

---------------------------------------------------------------
WAC02-046
Click to expand...

This is a common practice in US to set up the person
to be ticketted. Many times you can see cops waiting
at some lonely desolate intersection to see
if the drivers stop completely rather than just rolling stop
at STOP signs. When you do a rolling stop you are pulled
over and given a ticket, which could cost you as much as
150 bucks. This is just revenue generating practice for
the state and apologizing etc is not going to help unless
your skin color matches cops (the reason I say
this is that I have never seen saying sorry to cops work,
whereas a white colleage once told he was let go after
apologzing for the mistake, it could also be a state factor
I have seen some lenient cops in OR but not in CA).

To the person who "cares" about ecology, how come
it is harmful to ecology to pick some pebbles but it is
okay to leave Coke and Pepsi cans all over the place.
If there was a sign saying that do not pick stones, and
if the person picking apologizes they should be let go.

If you can not do such simple things like pick some pebbles from
a river, (as long as you do not hoard them in a truck),
what else can you do.
 
I reccomend you to read books from Nolo company. You can read them or buy in any bookstore. Here their website www.nolo.com.
This will explain you a lot. It doesn't matter how did you receive newspaper, the fact is you already had newspaper before collecting pebbles.

Paying bail means - you admit you guilty and agree to pay maximum fine. Appearing in court will reduce you fine, even you admit you are guilty. But I don't think it worse in your case. Easy way to pay be free(but guilty) and do not spent whole day or more.

I am pretty sure this case won't affect your GC processing in any way.
 
I don't know how in a world I came across this thread. It is funny, one has to wait for weeks to get a response for a tiny 140 question but everybody seem to have a lot of feelings about ecology:D
Anyway, don't worry about the fine affecting your GC. Do whatever you feel is right. Go to court if you have time, if you are genuine and if judge likes you, you may pay only part of it. If not, you will pay 200 plus the court fee ( about $30 depending on the state)/ A few times I went to court seemed like a waist of my time although can be amusing. I don't know how compassionate they are going to be at Yellow Stone to pebble pickers. Remember ignorance doesn't translate into innocence. Although, you may come across a very compassionate judge who still however has to do his job. Build your case on facts, not the feelings.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Unfortunately, ignorance is no excuse from the law. And it is not really possible to put signs everywhere in the 'wilderness' or it would not be a 'wilderness'.

But I agree, I hate these traps myself. If that ranger saw you commiting a crime, instead of waiting for ImmigrateMe to finish picking so that she could ticket him and his friends, she should have called out a warning! Though that is the fault of the ranger there is nothing you can do about it.

Shantanusfather, it is definitely not okay to leave coke and pepsi can's all over the place and for the matter neither is it okay to throw cigarette butts (which is one of the single largest cause of pollution in the bay area water systems).

pceefan, as far as toilet paper is concerned, that is sad price of progress, unless you want to roam about leaving your A** dirty! All you can do is minimize it by growing more trees and processing the waste!
 
Originally posted by 140_takes_4ever
Unfortunately, ignorance is no excuse from the law. And it is not really possible to put signs everywhere in the 'wilderness' or it would not be a 'wilderness'.

But I agree, I hate these traps myself. If that ranger saw you commiting a crime, instead of waiting for ImmigrateMe to finish picking so that she could ticket him and his friends, she should have called out a warning! Though that is the fault of the ranger there is nothing you can do about it.

Shantanusfather, it is definitely not okay to leave coke and pepsi can's all over the place and for the matter neither is it okay to throw cigarette butts (which is one of the single largest cause of pollution in the bay area water systems).

pceefan, as far as toilet paper is concerned, that is sad price of progress, unless you want to roam about leaving your A** dirty! All you can do is minimize it by growing more trees and processing the waste!
Click to expand...


I hope you are practising what you preach
 
Hey

This won't cause any problem with your GC




Argue in court you will get off with a warning
 
gracgom,

Absolutely! I invite you and everyone else interested to come for "Clean the bay day". Will post details on the next day if there are enough people interested.


Originally posted by gracgom
I hope you are practising what you preach
Click to expand...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top