San Carlos Apache man acquitted of trespassing on Mt. Graham

Wendsler A. Nosie, a San Carlos Apache, was arrested on the mountain, about 70 miles northeast of Tucson, Aug. 30 by University of Arizona police officers after he reportedly went to nearby Emerald Peak to pray. William Foreman, an attorney for Nosie, said his client was called upon by a higher power, and that there was more to the case than the university's claim that its property had been breached.

"What was at stake was nothing less than the religious and cultural health of the San Carlos Apache people," Foreman said.

Foreman said that on Jan. 20, Graham County Justice of the Peace Linda Norton found that the prosecutor was unable to prove that Nosie was knowingly trespassing.

"The University of Arizona is a newcomer to the mountain compared to the San Carlos Apache," Foreman said. "They (the San Carlos Apaches) have been going on the mountain for centuries to pray."

Nosie's wife, Theresa, said yesterday that Nosie went up the mountain to prepare for their daughter's Sunrise Ceremony, a religious practice to prepare a young woman for the coming of menstruation.

Mrs. Nosie said their daughter, Alicia, is approaching a time in her life when she will have to make her own decisions, and that Nosie just went on the mountain to pray for her.

"He just woke up one morning and said, 'I have to go up on the mountain to pray,'" she said.

Wendsler Nosie was stopped by a U.S. Forest Service worker while Nosie was walking down the private access road leading up the mountain, where the UA is building its large binocular telescope. Mrs. Nosie said the Forest Service worker warned her husband that the road was UA property, then called university police, whose officers arrested him on a charge of trespassing.