16 U.S.C. § 1338
Section 1338 · Criminal provisions
Amended 3 times on record
Applied in 12 court decisions — leading case American Horse Protection Ass'n v. United States Department of Interior (1977)
Most recently applied in 550 F. App'x 638 - Wild Horse Observers Ass'n v. Jewell (December 2013)
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year.Markers show enactment, consequential amendments, and circuit splits over this section — watch for a citation surge after a change or a disagreement. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
Any person who—
(1) willfully removes or attempts to remove a wild free-roaming horse or burro from the public lands, without authority from the Secretary, or
(2) converts a wild free-roaming horse or burro to private use, without authority from the Secretary, or
(3) maliciously causes the death or harassment of any wild free-roaming horse or burro, or
(4) except as provided in section 1333(e) of this title, processes or permits to be processed into commercial products the remains of a wild free-roaming horse or burro, or
(5) sells, directly or indirectly, a wild free-roaming horse or burro maintained on private or leased land pursuant to section 1334 of this title, or the remains thereof, or
(6) willfully violates a regulation issued pursuant to this chapter,
shall be subject to a fine of not more than $2,000, or imprisonment for not more than one year, or both. Any person so charged with such violation by the Secretary may be tried and sentenced by any United States commissioner or magistrate judge designated for that purpose by the court by which he was appointed, in the same manner and subject to the same conditions as provided for in section 3401 of title 18.
Any employee designated by the Secretary of the Interior or the Secretary of Agriculture shall have power, without warrant, to arrest any person committing in the presence of such employee a violation of this chapter or any regulation made pursuant thereto, and to take such person immediately for examination or trial before an officer or court of competent jurisdiction, and shall have power to execute any warrant or other process issued by an officer or court of competent jurisdiction to enforce the provisions of this chapter or regulations made pursuant thereto. Any judge of a court established under the laws of the United States, or any United States magistrate judge may, within his respective jurisdiction, upon proper oath or affirmation showing probable cause, issue warrants, in all such cases.
Editorial notes U.S. Code · Office of the Law Revision Counsel
Amendments
2004—Subsec. (a)(4). Pub. L. 108–447 inserted “except as provided in section 1333(e) of this title,” before “processes or permits”.
Change of Name
“United States magistrate judge” and “magistrate judge” substituted for “United States magistrate” and “magistrate”, respectively, in text pursuant to section 321 of Pub. L. 101–650, set out as a note under section 631 of Title 28, Judiciary and Judicial Procedure.