Bad Sports

 

This week, President Trump pardoned a trail runner who was convicted in September of a misdemeanor for going off-trail in Wyoming's Grand Teton National Park, which is prohibited, in a quest to set a time record for running up and down the 13.2-mile, 7,000-foot-high peak.

Michelino Sunseri, 33, had appeared to shave off two minutes from the previous record when he submitted his results to Fastest Known Times, but the governing body revoked the record after learning Sunseri had cut a switchback on the descent to avoid day hikers, which also shaved off a half mile from the course.

That revocation alerted park officials that Sunseri had used a prohibited trail that was closed for restoration to prevent erosion.  

What happened next caused much controversy between nature lovers and adrenaline junkies. The sides clashed over the appropriateness of the punishment, since leaving the trail is prohibited and punishable by a reported $5,000 fine, a ban from the park, and/or the imposition of community service.

Was it justified, or a case of over prosecution, or was it something else?
Officials weigh many circumstances when deciding how to proceed with sanctions in National Parks. They are especially concerned with intentional rule-breaking and prosecute such to the full extent as a deterrence.

In May, the NPS itself tried to withdraw the charges against Sunseri, but the Justice Department forced the case to proceed, eventually going to trial and leading to the conviction. Before his pardon, prosecutors had agreed to seek a case dismissal if Sunseri completed 60 hours of community service and a course on wilderness stewardship.

News media labeled the pardon a rare non-partisan move despite the fact that the case fit squarely into this administration's deeply partisan disdain for any power welded outside of the executive branch. They may even have forced the case to continue just to have another cause to rebuke the administrative state.

Essentially, it seems, this administration doesn't want experts – National Parks or other agencies – telling them what to do. And with recent Supreme Court decisions upending agencies’ ability to make and enforce new rules that cleave to the spirit of other environmental laws.

They don’t want to defer to the experts, and they think we are gullible enough to agree.
Especially when they can grab a few lines of an incomplete story and spin it into a wider web.

Whether leniency in any specific case is warranted will always be debated, but we should be careful to consider what will become of our natural wonders after we’ve damaged the authority of those entrusted with maintaining them. Property damage, illegal activities, and other unforeseen harms, such as when people leave the trails, harming themselves and endangering the lives of their rescuers in the process, will likely grow.

What’s so disheartening is that it could have gone another way.

Mr. Sunseri could have simply said he was sorry and used his platform to educate peers on how to be better stewards of the land.

Instead, he accepted a pardon and denounced his treatment by officials. Perhaps he was a pawn, too.

This is truly an exercise with no winners but a heck of a lot of bad sports.