## Facts

- The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission regulated “road hunting,” generally banning hunting from or shooting across maintained public roads and hunting within fifty yards of a road’s center during modern gun deer season.
- In 1995, the Commission amended Code 18.04 to add a “prima facie evidence” provision: during modern gun and muzzleloading deer seasons, possession of a loaded firearm on any maintained public road or right-of-way in an area where wild game is likely to be present constituted prima facie evidence of hunting.
- The amendment also required that firearms in motor vehicles on such roads or rights-of-way be unloaded and either cased or placed unloaded in a gun rack.
- The amendment included limited exceptions, including for certain handguns carried for purposes other than hunting, for protection of livestock or property, and for law enforcement officers acting within official duties.
- Licensed hunters filed a declaratory-judgment action challenging the amended provision as exceeding the Commission’s authority and as unconstitutional, including claims that it was overbroad.
- The circuit court declared the amended portion void as unconstitutionally overbroad and beyond the Commission’s authority, and the Commission appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether the Commission’s authority under Arkansas Constitution Amendment 35 to regulate the “manner of taking game” permits a regulation treating mere possession of a loaded firearm on public roads or rights-of-way during deer season as prima facie evidence of hunting.
2. Whether the amended provision is unconstitutionally overbroad because it burdens or criminalizes a substantial range of lawful, non-hunting firearm possession on public roads.

## Decision

- The Arkansas Supreme Court affirmed the circuit court’s judgment invalidating the amended provision.
- The court held that Amendment 35 grants broad discretion to regulate hunting, but not a general power to regulate firearm possession on maintained public roads and rights-of-way.
- The court held the “prima facie evidence” provision was unconstitutionally overbroad because it swept in innocent and legitimate conduct by non-hunters lawfully possessing firearms.
- The court declined to reach additional constitutional and statutory challenges because the case could be resolved on authority and overbreadth grounds.

## Legal Principles

- Amendment 35 gives the Commission exclusive authority to regulate the manner of taking game and set penalties for violations, but that discretion is limited to the subject matter granted.
- A regulation is overbroad when it targets conduct the state may punish but also includes within its reach a substantial amount of constitutionally protected or otherwise lawful conduct.
- An agency may not expand a hunting regulation into a general firearms-possession regime applicable to the public at large on roads and rights-of-way.
- A burden-shifting presumption tied to mere possession can be invalid where it broadly forces lawful actors to prove they are not engaged in prohibited hunting.

## Conclusion

The court struck down the amended road-hunting presumption because it exceeded the Commission’s Amendment 35 authority and was facially overbroad, sweeping lawful firearm possession on public roads into a rule aimed at preventing illegal road hunting.


Ark. Game & Fish Comm’n v. Murders, 938 S.W.2d 854 (Ark. 1997)