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Michelino Sunseri, an experienced runner, faces a prison sentence to run on a mountain path.
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Imagine this: you lace your shoes, take a breath of fresh mountain air and browse the trail in the Grand Towel National Park. You complete a legendary speed record in the world of ultra-course, and the other runners celebrate you. Then you are slapped with a federal crime.
It looks like a joke, right? Unfortunately, it’s real – and it now happens in Michelino Sunseri, a 32 -year -old bartender and a record mountain runner.
Sunseri has traveled a path which, even thousands of people, before him: he has taken a well worn path, the one that has been used for decades by hikers, climbers and runners. There was no door. No storing park that prevents people. Just a little sign on “erosion” half hidden in the sagebrush. But it was enough for the National Park Service To load it with a federal crime.
Now, Sunseri envisages up to $ 5,000 in fines, six months possible in federal prison and worse than all – a permanent criminal record. To add the insult to the injury, he could also be prohibited from the Grand Tests National Park, the mountains he loves, for the next five years.
It is not justice. It is an overriminalization.
The Grand Teton mountains stand beyond a Grand Teton national park panel outside Jackson, Wyoming, United States, Thursday, August 25, 2011. The president of the Federal Reserve Ben S. Bernanke could disappoint investors in Paris shares on a commitment to intensify the recovery when it makes remarks during the annual Fed symposium. (Photographer: Daniel Acker / Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Sunseri should not be a criminal. He did not vandalize or injured anyone. He ran a path. He did not damage the path and was open on this subject. He published his record race on a digital application, and it was when government bureaucrats decided to make an example of him.
When federal bureaucrats act as legislator, judge and jury, we cannot do much. As a former federal prosecutor, I can tell you that the Ministry of Justice wins 90% of its cases. And too often, there is no common sense, no grace, no understanding. Just a raw and uncontrolled power.
And here is the truth: it can happen to you.
When the government creates a labyrinth of vague rules and hidden signs, then pursues people who violated them without knowing and without intentionIt is not justice. These are power and control.
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Sunseri’s case is a warning for all of us. This shows what is happening when Americans should follow the rules they can’t even see. No one throughout the federal government keeps them all, but we estimate that there are more than 300,000 federal laws and regulations that carry federal criminal sanctions.
And remember, once found guilty of a federal crime, there is no radiation from your file. Even if you are forgiven, your criminal record follows you a lifetime and prevents housing, education and employment opportunities.
Sunseri’s case does not concern a path. This is the growing fracture between everyday citizens and an uncontrollable bureaucracy who thinks she knows better. This is the erosion of freedom in the name of government authority.
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We cannot sit down and let it continue. The exaggerated government is real, and this case is play A. We need laws written by elected legislators – not non -responsible federal agencies. We need clarity, no hidden signs and Gotcha rules. And above all, we need a judicial system that remembers the difference between a criminal – and a man who loves running in the mountains where he lives.
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