Federal jury convicts gold miner on first count, acquits on second

Cliff Tracy likely headed to jail after brief trial for illegal mining.

MEDFORD — A federal jury on Friday found a Southern Oregon man guilty of illegal mining but acquitted him of discharging a pollutant into a stream.

Clifford Tracy, 39, of Gold Hill, was accused of failing to file the proper paperwork before starting to mine on federal land, mining after he was told to stop and allowing muddy water to run into Galice Creek, a tributary of the Rogue River outside Grants Pass that is home to threatened coho salmon.

Jurors returned their verdict after a two-day trial in which Tracy acted as his own lawyer, called himself to the witness stand and quoted from the Gettysburg Address.

Sentencing on the misdemeanor conviction is set Feb. 6.

“The defendant would have you think it is his land,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Douglas Fong told jurors. “It is public land.”

Fong said the mining claim was not Tracy’s — the man was simply operating it.

“Yet he has the audacity to say, ‘This is my property right,’ ” Fong said.

Before Tracy took the stand, U.S. District Judge Owen Panner told him to take a straw out of his mouth.

“There is a prohibition on mining,” Tracy told the court.

At times asking himself questions which he then answered, Tracy said bureaucracy was effectively stopping legal mining.

Referring to himself in the third person, he said, “Anymore, it’s just a paper game. Tracy was fed up — Tracy would rather be dead than play this game.”

He told jurors he was a good citizen, then recited Abraham Lincoln’s famous address.

Read more: http://www.sacbee.com/2011/12/11/4114710/will-cry-of-the-wolf-return-to.html#ixzz1gN4TSkGn