FAMILY HEALTH GUIDE SPECIAL SECTION | INSIDE
FAMILY HEALT
H GUIDE
FEBRUARY
2021
INSIDE
When to get
vaccinated
for
COVID-19
Pages 8-9
Cataracts:
Age-related
vison loss
treatable is
Page 13
The ABC’s
dental hea of
lth
Getty Images
Page 15
Traveling
cardiologist
eager to see
new patients
Page 16
CMC: A plac
for stress e
reduction
Page 19
Maintaining
mental hea
amid the lth
pandemic
Pages 20-2
1
SPORTS MAKING A REBOUND IN GRANT COUNTY | PAGE A3
MyEagleNews.com
Wednesday, February 17, 2021
153rd Year • No. 7 • 16 Pages • $1.50
DA: Murder, arson charges being dismissed
because confession was improperly obtained
Judge rules confession in Smith case
inadmissible because of Miranda violations
By Sean Hart
Blue Mountain Eagle
Gabrielle
Connery
Isaac
Connery
Murder charges related to the missing
couple whose house burned in Grant County
are being dismissed because the confession
was not properly obtained.
Charges of first-degree murder and arson
against Isaac Connery, 23, and his mother,
Gabrielle Connery, 47, will be dismissed
without prejudice — meaning the state could
file the charges again if further evidence is
discovered — according to a Feb. 12 press
release from Grant County District Attorney
Jim Carpenter.
The charges are in connection with the
deaths of Terry and Sharon Smith, whose
house on Nans Rock Road near Mt. Vernon
burned to the ground in the early morning
hours of July 17-18, 2018.
“This is heartbreaking on many lev-
els,” Carpenter said. “Through Isaac Con-
nery’s confession, we know who did it and
how it was done. The mystery is gone but
the accountability is, at least for now, out of
reach.”
Judge Daina Vitolins ruled Feb. 10 that
the confession by Isaac Connery obtained
Terry and Sharon Smith
by Grant County Undersheriff Zach Mobley
could not be used at trial because state pros-
ecutors could not prove the confession was
knowing, intelligent and voluntary because
of Miranda violations.
Vitolins said Mobley never asked whether
Isaac Connery understood his Miranda rights
— the right to remain silent and have an
attorney present during questioning. She also
said, after Isaac Connery invoked his right to
defense counsel, Mobley continued talking
to him in violation of the law.
“Once an individual invokes their right to
counsel, law enforcement must scrupulously
honor that request and stop questioning,” she
said.
Vitolins said Mobley’s testimony at the
Feb. 10 hearing was “not helpful” because he
did not review the interview tapes before the
hearing and often said on the witness stand
he was unsure and would have to review the
tapes. She also said a face mask blocked the
See Murder, Page A16
Contributed photo/ODFW
Tests conducted by Oregon Department of Fish
and Wildlife veterinarians confirmed that Epizo-
otic hemorrhagic disease is responsible for the
die-off of an estimated 2,000 white-tailed deer
in Eastern Oregon.
COLLABORATION
RESTORATION
Deer survey
planned amid
declining
populations
By Rudy Diaz
Blue Mountain Eagle
File photo
Local forest collaboratives
helped end the prohibition on
logging trees greater than 21
inches in diameter.
Environmentalists, timber professionals work
together using science to end 21-inch rule
By Steven Mitchell
Blue Mountain Eagle
Environmentalists, working alongside
timber industry professionals, helped end the
ban on logging trees over 21 inches.
Instead of fighting in the courtroom, with
environmental lawsuits halting timber proj-
ects, the former adversaries joined together
in forest collaboratives to find areas of agree-
ment using science, and the most recent
result is the end of an era of prohibition on
logging trees larger than 21 inches in diam-
eter — a result the collaboratives believe is
mutually beneficial for the environment and
the timber industry, and based on the best
available science.
Although the new rule — which still
emphasizes protection of old trees — is
unpopular among some in the conservation
community, local collaborative leaders say
the 21-inch rule for central and Eastern Ore-
gon forests long outlived its usefulness and
had unforeseen implications on the forests’
long-term health.
The 21-inch rule was part of the Eastside
EO Media Group file photo
Bruce Daucsavage of Ochoco Lumber Co., left,
and environmental law attorney Susan Jane
Brown discuss forest policy collaboration
during a 2015 symposium in Portland.
Screens, a set of standards that came to be
in 1995 to protect wildlife habitat and water
quality on nearly 10 million acres of public
land in Eastern Oregon.
Susan Jane Brown, an environmental
attorney from the Western Environmental
Law Center who serves on the Blue Moun-
tains Forest Partners collaborative in John
Day, said the rule gave conservation litigants
the legal footing to challenge proposed tim-
ber projects to stop the logging of trees larger
than 21 inches at a time when there was still
a lot of old-growth logging happening on
public lands.
“It was designed to stop the bleeding and
it did,” Brown said, adding the rule was only
supposed to be in place for 18 months. “It
stuck around for a lot longer than its expira-
tion date.”
She said the environmental and scien-
tific communities have learned a lot since
then. Brown said management decisions
like the ban on cutting large trees, cou-
pled with fire suppression tactics in areas
that are “fire ecosystems” and climate
change have created places like the Mal-
heur National Forest that are more prone to
wildfire.
“Forest Service decisions are not known
to make everyone happy all the time,” she
said, “so it’s not unsurprising that some
would be skeptical that this isn’t a timber
grab.”
See Restoration, Page A16
“TO THE EXTENT THAT ENVIRONMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS ARE AGAINST THAT RULE, EITHER
THEY DON’T UNDERSTAND WHAT THE LANDSCAPE NEEDS, OR THEY’RE OPPOSED TO GOING
THAT DIRECTION OUT OF A PRINCIPLE OPPOSITION TO ACTIVE MANAGEMENT.”
—Mark Webb, Blue Mountains Forest Partners executive director
A new deer survey will soon be underway,
but officials expect more of the same: declining
populations.
Ryan Platt, the assistant district wildlife biolo-
gist at the Oregon Department of Fish and Wild-
life’s John Day Field Office, said ODFW is fly-
ing for the survey earlier this year because they
will conduct a new survey method to count the
declining deer population.
A helicopter will be flying out starting Feb. 22
as it conducts surveys on the deer population for
three weeks throughout Grant County.
This year, Platt said ODFW is working with a
statistical sampling-based survey method called
Sight Rat, the first time they have used this
method in the John Day District. He said this sur-
vey combines two population methods based on
sizes and quadrants.
“We’re kind of guessing we’ll see more
decline from the previous years when we did our
statistical sampling,” Platt said. “Deer in general
throughout Oregon and throughout the West face
many factors such as habitat loss and degrada-
tion, predators and diseases.”
Platt said one problem deer face in the John
Day Valley is winter range degradation caused
by juniper and annual grass encroachment. He
also said some ranges are not as productive as
they used to be due to a change in climate, sup-
pressing fires and the decline of logging.
Disease issues are also growing with mule
deer, according to Platt. He said, in 2015, mule
deer in the Eastern Oregon region faced an out-
break of the epizootic hemorrhagic disease. This
disease makes deer bleed internally, which either
kills them right away or causes lasting effects,
Platt said.
“On bucks, we know that it shrivels their tes-
ticles, and they’re unable to produce hormones
that regulate antler growth,” Platt said. “That’s
why you’ll see velvet bucks this time of year
when everyone one else has antlers that hardened
or dropped off.”
See Deer, Page A16