Federal Judge Blocks Trump Administration's Rollback of Migratory Bird Protection
MANHATTAN (CN) — Sprinkling her ruling with the wisdom of literary lawyer Atticus Finch, an Alabama-born federal judge stopped President Trump’s Interior Department from declaring open season on practices that endanger migratory birds.
“It is not only a sin to kill a mockingbird, it is also a crime,” U.S. District Judge Valerie Caproni, quoting the novel “To Kill a Mockingbird” and federal law, wrote in the introduction of her 31-page ruling.
“That has been the letter of the law for the past century,” it continues. “But if the Department of the Interior has its way, many mockingbirds and other migratory birds that delight people and support ecosystems throughout the country will be killed without legal consequence.”
Born in Lee County, Alabama, Judge Caproni grew up a 2.5-hour drive away from the hometown of Harper Lee, the literary pride of the “Cotton State” whose novel stands as an icon of fictional civil rights lawyering.
Since Barack Obama appointed her to New York’s federal bench in 2013, Caproni’s droll wit and remnants of her Southern dialect occasionally has made their mark on her cases.
The latest of this pantheon involves the Trump administration’s bid three years ago to reinterpret the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918, aimed at “saving from indiscriminate slaughter” migratory birds in the United States, United Kingdom and Canada.
https://www.courthousenews.com/federal-judge-blocks-trump-administrations-rollback-of-migratory-bird-protection/
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