May 19, 2016
From IndianCountryTodayMedianNetwork.com
It was January of 2014 when three Crow tribal members, Clayvin Herrera, Captain of the Crow Fish and Game Department, along with his nephew Colton Herrera Jr. and Ronnie Fisher, each killed an elk along the boundary between the reservation and the Bighorn National Forest.
Wyoming game wardens, after seeing photos on a website, became suspicious that the elk were taken in Wyoming. Eight months later, in September of that year, two officers of the Wyoming Game and Fish Department came to the Crow Reservation, read Clayvin his rights, interviewed him, and asked if he would accept a citation because they had no authority on the reservation. Clayvin agreed to take the citations and went to Wyoming voluntarily to defend himself against the charges.
The case against Clayvin went to trial April 27 with Circuit Court Judge Shelley A. Cundiff presiding. The prosecution claimed the three Crow men shot the elk about one mile inside the Wyoming border on the Bighorn National Forest. The jury found Clayvin guilty of taking an elk and helping others take an elk in Wyoming during a closed season. Judge Cundiff sentenced Clayvin to one year of unsupervised probation, suspended his hunting privileges in any state for three years, and fined him $8,000.