Montana man seeks US Supreme Court appeal on poaching case

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — A Montana Crow tribe member found guilty of poaching an elk in northern Wyoming has petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to hear his case.

The Billings Gazette reports that a Wyoming jury found Clayvin Herrera guilty last year of two poaching charges from a January 2014 hunt that began on the Crow Reservation in Montana but ended inside Wyoming.

Authorities say Herrera shot and killed the elk out of season in the Bighorn National Forest.

Wyoming District Judge John Fenn upheld the conviction on appeal, and the Wyoming Supreme Court rejected the case in June.

Herrera, who was sentenced to one year of unsupervised probation and ordered to pay $8,080, has maintained as part of his defense that an 1868 treaty allows Crows to hunt on unoccupied federal land.