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Snowmobiler's Lawsuit Tests Power of Wardens

June 11, 2008 - Thomas Dube did more than mimic motorists at rush hour on the New Jersey Turnpike when he expressed his frustration at a game warden on March 10, 2007.

Since Dube, as he put it, "flipped the international bird" from his snowmobile, he has spent the past year building a case so that he can take a stand as an American.

And he's not backing down.

Dube filed a lawsuit in Piscataquis County Superior Court last month alleging that Wardens Michael Boyer and Ronald Dunham violated his constitutional rights of free speech. The Maine Attorney General's Office moved the case to U.S. District Court.

And Dube -- a native Mainer and lifelong outdoorsman -- has been waiting for this opportunity for a long time.

In fact, Dube may have been caught by surprise on the snowmobile trail outside Millinocket when he and his wife, Patricia, came upon four game wardens in the woods. But he was not surprised when they later rode up to his parked snowmobile -- after he gave them the middle finger -- and asked to see his registration.

Dube took out a tape recorder, and repeatedly asked, "Am I free to go?"

"We are losing our rights all the time," said Dube, 52, who owns a car dealership. "This is my First Amendment right. It's not the 15th or 16th Amendment, it's the first. And the Fourth: they were detaining me without just cause."

The Warden Service could not comment on the lawsuit because it is pending litigation, said Col. Joel Wilkinson in a prepared statement.

However, that Dube found fault with the wardens' reasons for detaining him is ironic.

In 2000, the Maine Legislature changed the law, giving game wardens the same power -- but no more -- as other law enforcement officers.

After that, game wardens could no longer stop ATV riders, snowmobilers or motorists without reasonable suspicion that a law had been violated.

Once the clarifications were made in the law, "wardens recieved training on the revisions as they apply to how they do their jobs," Wilkinson said in a prepared statement.

Wilkinson also wrote: "The Maine Warden Service is given statutory language that allows them to conduct safety checkpoints, as well as stop snowmobilers if there is an articulate suspicion of noncompliance of state law."

Whether the wardens had a reasonable cause to detain Dube and question him on March 10, 2007, is the basis of his legal argument.

Dube said he and his wife were riding from Millinocket toward a snowmobile intersection that day when "something jumped out."

He said that when a warden called for him to stop, he pointed to his dealer plates, showing that his snowmobile was registered, and the warden waved him on.

But at an intersection up ahead, when Dube said he and his wife stopped to discuss the game wardens' unnerving tactics, the wardens drove by and waved.

That's when Dube gave Dunham the middle finger.

At that point, Dube said, Dunham asked for his license and registration; and cited him for disorderly conduct.

The citation was later thrown out by Piscataquis County District Attorney R. Christopher Almy. But Dube's only getting started.

For years, he said, he watched wardens operate above the law.

Now, he plans to give them a lesson in the Constitution, representing himself in court.

"I've been waiting for the right situation. That is why I kept asking, 'Am I free to go?' I was told by a law professor once if I ever get stopped, just ask them point blank, 'Am I free to go?' As soon as they say, no, and they detain me, they hold me, they are impeding my freedom of movement. That is a violation of the law," Dube said. "I'm very hard about that. This is still America."

Dube is not stopping at wardens Boyer and Dunham.

He said he plans, "when I win," to sue the other two unidentified wardens, as well as Inland Fisheries and Wildlife Commissioner Danny Martin.

Although, according to the Attorney General's Office "in general the state cannot be sued except in very specific circumstances under the Tort Claims Act," which relates, among other things, to negligence in the use of a motor vehicle, a public building or a pollutant.

In a prepared statement, Martin said he was not worried.

"I am not concerned at all, because I don't believe we have violated Mr. Dube's civil rights," Martin said in a statement.

By DEIRDRE FLEMING, Portland Press Herald, June 8, 2008


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