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Showdown In Greenlee County
“Today it’s me... tomorrow it’s you”

Daniel Martinez

By Lee Pitts

www.paragonfoundation.org

In the wild wild west of the late 1800’s rustlers carried runnin’ irons under their saddle skirts or “doctored” brands with a red hot cinch ring held between two green branches. In the New West the rustlers don’t even bother with changing the brands. 

In the Old West cowboys wore guns on their hips, rode fast horses and kept an eye peeled for lawmen. In the New West the cattle rustlers are lawmen. They still wear hoglegs on their belts but now they are aided by rent-a-cowboys and  helicopters. 

In the Old West cattle thieves would hide the cattle they stole in secluded box canyons until they could herd them a long, long way from their home range. In the New West Forest Service employees steal the cattle in broad daylight, with lawmen watching, and then load the stolen cattle in trucks and haul them two states away where no one knows their story. Then they sell them at auction and keep the money. 

In the Old West someone would have been hung from a cottonwood for this. In the New West the desperadoes hide behind judges and are seldom punished.

This is a story about cattle thievin’, plain and simple. At first it may sound like you’ve heard this story before as similar scenes are being played out all over the west. But this story is a little different because the rancher they have picked on this time aims to shoot back. His gun is not loaded with blanks and he’s coming out blazin’.

A Familiar Story

Daniel Martinez does not fit the profile of your typical western hero. Or rancher, for that matter. For one thing, he was trained to be a pill pusher: a pharmacist. Then there is the fact that he made his money riding herd over Texas apartment buildings, not cattle. But make no mistake, Daniel’s ranching family goes back a long way in these parts. For decades, the cattle on the Martinez Ranch northeast of Clifton, Arizona, near the New Mexico border, belonged to Abelardo Martinez Sr., or “Abe” as he is known to his many friends in the area. Abe has “only” owned his ranch since 1948 but cattle have run on the Martinez Ranch since 1872. Up until the late 1970’s the relationship between Abe and area ranchers and the Forest Service was a good one, built on mutual respect. All that changed in 1976 when the war on the west began in earnest. That’s when the feds started picking off the ranchers one by one until today there are hardly any cattle or cowboys left at all in Greenlee county.

“There is a clear trend occurring on the forest lands from Clifton to Alpine,” says rancher Jeff Menges. “Cattle have been removed first from the river areas, now the upland areas; roads are being closed at an alarming rate and the Forest Service is acquiring most of the private land in the area. Years ago, environmental groups targeted these lands as an area they would like to use strictly for wildlife, with emphasis on introduction of wolves, grizzly bears and jaguars into the area. While they cannot accomplish these goals in one swipe, radical environmental groups feel they can methodically accomplish their goal by chipping away and attaining one piece of their ultimate goal at a time. Actions from local Forest Service officials over the past decade indicate a willingness to help the environmental groups attain their objectives.”

Specifically, we are talking about two groups, the Forest Guardians and the Arizona Wildlife Federation who want to turn Greenlee County into a wildlife Disneyland for four endangered species: the spikedace, loach minnows, Chiricuahua frogs and the Mexican spotted owls. For years they had been pressuring the Forest Service to remove all cattle from Abe’s Pleasant Valley and Hickey allotments and  Dan Martinez says he has proof that the environmentalists colluded with the Forest Service to kick his family off the land. That, as Martinez reminds us, is a criminal act.

 The Devil Is In The Details

Abe’s problems with the Forest Service started even before he decided to sell out to his three sons, Abe Jr., a McDonalds franchisee, Daniel and younger brother Robert. The Forest Service trumped up criminal charges against Robert for performing routine maintenance on a road on the family’s allotment. The feds said that maintaining the roads on Abe’s ranch was now all of a sudden against the law, even though they’d done it for decades. Displaying early signs of his court savvy, Daniel got that charge thrown out of court. 

But the Forest Service would not be denied and they saw Abe’s sale of the ranch as their best opportunity to kick another rancher off the land and they seized it.

Abe had been paying $5,000 per year into a range improvement fund, and when he sold the ranch the Forest Service demanded that he sign a “waiver of permit” which the Forest Service said was a mere formality and that the permit would then be transferred to the three brothers. Along with the waiver came a demand that Daniel and his brothers reduce the stocking rate by 25%. (One allotment previously had a carrying capacity of 419 head and the other a carrying capacity of 275 head). The Forest Service also demanded that they remove cattle from all riparian and river areas. But Daniel then did what most people DO NOT DO when signing a document. He read it. According to the small print, if his father signed the waiver of permit he was relinquishing all rights and property to the United States. Daniel urged his father not to sign it and he agreed.

“The grazing permit has become a contentious issue in the west where the Forest Service has often used the terms and conditions of the permit to harass, intimidate and bankrupt family ranchers,” says the Paragon Foundation. “Traditionally, ranchers voluntarily signed grazing permits in order to participate in the cooperative range improvement fund, financed by their grazing fees. As the requirements of these permits became increasingly punitive and onerous, some ranchers have opted out of the range improvement fund.”

This is exactly what Daniel Martinez did. “I could not afford to run cattle under the punitive terms and conditions of their VOLUNTARY GRAZING PERMIT PROGRAM.” 

A Cowboy’s Dream Job

Because Daniel would not sign the waiver, the Forest Supervisor for the Apache Sitegreaves Forest said that Daniel no longer had a grazing permit, and on July 25 the Forest Service sent Daniel a notice of intent to impound unauthorized livestock. 

Martinez was advised that he could redeem the livestock after they were gathered by submitting proof of ownership and paying for all costs incurred by the Forest Service in gathering, impounding and feeding the livestock. Martinez was told he could redeem his livestock, in other words, buy cattle that he already owned, for only $1,075 PER HEAD! Needless to say, that was far more than they were worth.

Why did it cost so much merely to gather the cattle and hold them? One reason, according to Daniel, was that the Forest Service paid one of his neighbors $450 PER HEAD to gather them! Nice work if you can get it.

When the dastardly deed was done, the Forest Service showed up in the now familiar paramilitary-style fashion with side arms in place and helicopters swirling overhead. This extensive show of force despite the fact that the Martinez family had no intention of trying to stop the roundup and has no history of violence.

Six loads of cattle were gathered up while the County Sheriff, Steve Tucker and the District Attorney, Derek Rapier, did nothing, because they said it was a federal matter. This despite the fact that the Forest Service was stealing the cattle WITHOUT a court order. A court order is required to forcibly remove private property from any citizen of the United States and the last time we looked that included Arizona!

The Forest Service said that a court order was not necessary because the action was being taken through an “administrative process” and that the State of Arizona Department of Agriculture had entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with the Forest Service to remove the Constitutional obstacle requiring the Forest Service to first obtain a court order. Yes, you read that right. A Memorandum of Understanding trumped the U.S. Constitution. Such actions prompted G. B. Oliver, Executive Director of the Paragon Foundation to say, “If the State isn’t careful, some rancher may end up owning a courthouse before this is over.”

Arizona had previously required court orders to seize cattle but in this case the about-face came on direct orders from Arizona Governor Napolitano. The Forest Service gathered the family’s herd of cattle that had been grazing on their two allotments for decades as “strays”, as if they were unbranded and unclaimed.

The cattle were loaded on trucks and sent out of state without brand papers, a class four felony. The Forest Service did not own these cattle and they carried no Forest Service brand. How could they -- the Forest Service doesn’t have one!

  No sale barn in Arizona would sell the cattle, and New Mexico authorities told the Forest Service if they were unloaded in the Land of Enchantment that they would be confiscated. So the Forest Service sent them all the way to Dalhart, Texas, to be auctioned off. Daniel Martinez successfully filed a petition for injunction that kept the cattle from being sold temporarily but the injunction expired and 328 head of cattle belonging to Daniel Martinez and his brothers were sold for $159,606. By the way, in the process 10 cows and two calves died. 

The Forest Service said that the sale proceeds went towards “offsetting costs incurred by the Forest Service, the state of Arizona and the sale barn for gathering and caring for the cattle. If there are any receipts left the remaining money goes to the previous owner of the cattle.”

Daniel Martinez doesn’t expect a check in the mail any time soon as the Forest Service said the costs came to $400.00, or two and a half times more than the cattle sold for. Only our federal government could gather, ship and sell cattle at an auction market and lose $732 per head!

But wait... the story gets even worse. The Forest Service sold cattle they did not own that had a $600,000 lien against them that predated the wrongful seizure of the cattle by the Forest Service! That’s right,  Abe Martinez Sr. took back a note on the cattle when he sold them and had a lien on them. Whenever a sale barn or anyone sells cattle that they know have a lien against them the check is usually made out to the person who has the lien along with the seller. And make no mistake, Daniel notified both the Forest Service and the sale barn that the cattle had a lien against them.

In a nutshell the Forest Service sold cattle they did not own, without a proper brand inspection or a court order that had a lien against them. Talk about rustling! How could the buyers of these cattle possibly have clear title? 

It’s little wonder then that the Forest Service, according to Martinez, hired a public relations firm to handle damage control.

Don’t Sign Anything

Perhaps you are reading this and do not understand our outrage. After all, Daniel Martinez failed to pay a grazing fee so his cattle were confiscated and sold, you say. But get this: Daniel Martinez never received a bill for grazing fees from the Forest Service. Not a bill of any kind. In fact, says Martinez, “I have never refused to do anything the Forest Service has asked of me. All I have ever asked is for them to show me proof of their claim. I repeatedly asked them to show me proof of their authority and jurisdiction. They have refused all my requests.” 

Upon impoundment of his cattle and their requesting $1,075 per head Martinez wrote to the Forest Service, “I will pay any reasonable amount requested as long as you can show me where I have consented to you impounding my chattels, or a proper Warrant or Court Order or where you have the authority as per an act of Congress or a Federal Statutes that applies within the state of Arizona. If you cannot provide the above said documentation you are, in fact, extorting me and I ask that you show contrition for your acts and return my chattels to my property.”

Martinez says that the reason the Forest Service has not shown him proof of their authority and jurisdiction is because none exists. Helen Chenoweth-Hage, herself a battle-scarred warrior of the west says, “Three years ago I publicly issued a $1,000 challenge to anybody who could produce the law requiring ranchers to sign grazing permits. I still have my $1,000.”

Says Chenoweth-Hage, “The land management agencies, fearful of a mass exodus from the grazing permit program, have turned to mafia-style fear and intimidation tactics to ensure ranchers renew their permits. Most ranchers don’t want to risk losing their livestock and livelihood at gun point. It’s a very effective tool of intimidation.”

Too bad for the Forest Service, Daniel Martinez is not so easily scared.

  For 120 years everyone involved acknowledged the rights of the Martinez family and their predecessors to graze the property and to make improvements but when green groups and the Forest Service began to covet the land they tried to change the rules. But Martinez has read the rule book. And he’s also got the time and the money to fight the feds that many ranchers don’t have. Martinez just sold his apartments in Texas, is waiting to develop property in Las Vegas and, thanks to the Forest Service,  he has no more cattle to gather or brand. What Daniel does have is lots of time on his hands to study the law and to write letters. He’s also motivated: He’s mad. 

So this admitted “type-A personality” has spent months studying and preparing. He even belongs to two groups to discuss such legal issues and he can hold his own with any lawyer. In fact, that’s where Daniel says most ranchers get in trouble. They hire a lawyer who immediately starts bleeding them dry and then goes into the federal court, pleading their case. Daniel Martinez won’t go broke paying lawyers because he is writing his own letters, building his own case and doing his own research. He has no intention of having his case heard in a District Court that he says has no authority or jurisdiction in the matter. Throughout the entire process he has followed two very simple rules: Don’t sign anything and challenge authority.

Martinez maintains that the Forest Service has no jurisdiction in this matter because they were only authorized to do two things as codified by Congress: provide sustainable yields of timber and increase water flows. That’s it. Please note that rustling cattle has never been mentioned by the legislative branch of our government as part of the job description for the Forest Service. Martinez says that on his allotments the United States owns the underlying minerals and the timber, the state has jurisdiction and he owns the water rights and grazing privileges as vested rights. It’s codified by law. Thus the Forest Service has no jurisdiction and his case should be heard in state courts, not federal ones. That’s a huge distinction.

The Full Wrath Of The Law  

The Forest Service has said that they are relieved to have completed this phase of the lengthy process. They shouldn’t be. Their battle is just beginning. Despite the loss of his cattle, Daniel Martinez seems to be enjoying this. He doesn’t want any sympathy, was reluctant to even tell his story and friend Bob Jones says he has never asked for anyone’s help. Martinez isn’t interested in being anyone’s poster child or martyr. But make no mistake... he  does plan on bringing down the full wrath of the law on EVERYONE involved in stealing his cattle. Everyone from the Forest Service to the Sheriff and County Attorney who stood by and did nothing. (A recall petition is already well under way.) Says Martinez, “I intend to prosecute criminals.” 

As for the huge loss in time and money and all the frustration involved Martinez shakes it off and says that “unless there has been damage done you cannot challenge what they are doing.” He offers Rosa Parks as a shining example. If she had not been wronged by being forced to sit in the back of the bus her simple yet heroic actions would not have been possible. And the world would not have been forever changed.

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