Saturday, April 23, 2005

More on the Nelson County hunting case

The AP reports here that the circuit court judge has toured the premises of the rural hunting reserve at the center of a land use dispute in Nelson County.

Laurence Hammack from the Roanoke paper has this report ("Sighting in on the issue in right to hunt trial," 4/23/05), in which he (or some headline writer) notes that "Deciding whether shooting clay targets is hunting will require a judge to make distinctions as fine as No. 12 shot." Mr. Hammack offers this account of Judge Gamble's view of the property: "During the three-hour visit, a caravan of four-wheel-drive vehicles carried the judge and a small army of attorneys and journalists through creeks and across cornfields to tour the estate and witness shooting demonstrations by Barton, an Orion employee."

Carlos Santos from the Richmond paper has this report ("Judge takes to the fields in Nelson case," 4/23/05), which begins with this excellent sentence: "Judge Michael Gamble of Nelson County Circuit Court clambered over hill and dale via four-wheel-drive vehicle yesterday to watch shotgunners plug clay targets and live game birds in a quest to legally define the meaning of hunting."

Braxton Williams for the Charlottesville paper has this report ("Orion case takes to woods," 4/23/05), which begins: "A judge, a handful of lawyers wearing suits and hiking boots and a swarm of news reporters watched Freckles, a shaggy, dirt-caked English setter, as he sniffed through the brush in search of a pheasant."

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