ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, January 15, 1997 TAG: 9701150066
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: TODD JACKSON STAFF WRITER
When Franklin County Supervisor Hubert Quinn was convicted of hunting deer with dogs last year, he vowed he would appeal the case until he beat the charge.
Tuesday, a judge dismissed the case.
"I don't think I should have ever been charged in the first place," Quinn said. "And I certainly don't think that I should have ever been convicted."
Quinn's case was much talked-about and made headlines because he's a public figure and has a record of hunting convictions and moonshining from years ago.
Quinn could have paid a $100 fine on the most recent charge and avoided going to court in the first place; but as a matter of principal, he said, he was going to prove his innocence.
Quinn and his attorney, Jim Jefferson, who's also the attorney for the county Board of Supervisors, were shocked when Franklin County General District Judge Ryland Dodson found Quinn guilty in February.
Several others who faced the same charge, including Quinn's son Reggie, were acquitted the same day.
Hubert Quinn cried foul, saying politics played a part in his conviction.
Tuesday, his appeal was heard.
After the prosecution laid out the evidence, Jefferson made a motion to dismiss the case based on insufficient facts to support a charge against Quinn.
Retired Judge Kenneth Covington, who was asked to preside because of Quinn's position as an elected official, granted Jefferson's motion, the attorney said.
Jefferson said Covington's decision "says more about the quality of the case against Hubert than anything I could ever say."
Quinn and the other men charged were confronted by game wardens on Thanksgiving Day 1995 on Spicewood Hunt Club property, which straddles the Franklin County-Patrick County line off Virginia 785. Quinn, who was riding a four-wheeler at the time, said he wasn't hunting deer with dogs.
He had killed a deer earlier that morning and had hung it to field-dress it. Quinn said he spotted the animal himself, without the aid of hunting dogs.
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