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Bad Meteorite Laws

Hello Richard and List,

Again I was reading in Rocks From Space, this time as a follow up from the
discussion we have had on meteorites in court cases.

I noticed that in the book there is coverage of the Old Woman and Williamette.
Are these the ONLY two meteorite disputes that have ended up in court?

AND, does ANYONE have the actual court case numbers and when and where they
were tried?

The reason I ask, is I think the precedent that has been set can be reversed
if a good case went to court.  I would like to read about the actual court
case from transcripts and the judges decision and comments, NOT from the
Smithsonian's "Spin" on what they say happened.  After all, that has been
their free lunch ticket to many free meteorites, and of course one can predict
what 'spin" they would put on those cases!

IF in fact the Old Woman did not go to the miners/finders because meteorites
are not "locatable."  Then that is blatantly BAD LAW!!!!  I mean, let's be
serious.  Meteorites are VERY locatable.  I personally have been to the Imilac
site 3 times (sorry if I spoil Notkin's cliff hanger in his story in the
Meteorite magazine) and have returned with over 6,000 meteorites, precisely
because they are very locatable.  (By the way, these were all found on Chilean
Government land along with Vaca Muerta, Monturaqui, the Pampas (a thru z) as
well as almost every meteorite in Chile, and Chile has no problem letting
people recover specimens, and look at all the good that has been recovered
down there!!!!)

Look at the guys (and gals) at Gold Basin!  Try to tell them, you can't
intelligently locate meteorites.  They have found what, 3,000 specimens in 3
years!  Or try to tell the Antarctica teams that you can't locate meteorites
intellegently!  And even before this went to court in the 1970s, we had Canyon
Diablo, Plainview, Brenham, Pasamonte, not to mention a couple hundred other
examples of people having tremendous success locating them.  Everytime a giant
fireball is seen, there is a strong effort to attempt to locate meteorites
from the fall.

Now if the case was lost because the Old Woman was found on federal property
alone, I find it interesting that if it were a gold nugget that same size,
they finders could have kept it!

I think this issue is so ripe for a challenge in a court.  Personally I think
if this president could be changed it would be one of the greatest things for
the meteoritical community (albeit the Smithsonian wouldn't like it to much).
Just think about how many meteorites have jumped over property lines off of
federal, state or local lands and inaccurate information about the find site
was then passed on because of this bad interpretation of these laws.

As for the Williamette, I see that as plainly being felony theft, so I
understand why it turned out that way.

If anyone has the information requested above about the when and where and
what of the cases above, please let me know.  Also, if there are other cases,
or any other opinions, please let me know as well.

Steve