Wyoming Corner Crossing Defense Fund

[BuzzH]

I can imagine it is for a few. Certainly not the main reason though. Hard to believe that every landowner against corner crossing is a greedy bastard not wanting people to access public land. But I may be naive.

Really? Have you been following the Hughes Creek gate situation in Montana? Disregarding court ordered gate removal that's locking the public out of public land.

That's all this is about...keeping the peasants in line and off public land, where the wealthy feel we don't belong.

 

[antlerradar]

I wonder if part of the reason land owners are against corner crossing (generalized statement) is because they are concerned about people "cutting corners" or accessing the public land in ways other than stepping exactly over the corner marker. I mean realistically, if a law was made right now saying corner crossing was legal only if you step over at the exact corner, there will be a lot of people who are too lazy to find the corner. Much easier to be "close enough." Just a thought I had. I would be concerned about this if I was a land owner.

All due respect, do you really think that's part of the reason landowners don't want corner crossing?

There's only one reason: they don't want anyone on the public without their permission.

I think you are both right, If I have land were corner crossing applied I would worry that stepping over the corner would soon be withing 10 feet is close enough and that would soon be 100 feet and more.
I would also worry about people using the public to access my property. Every year I catch or find evidence of some one doing this. Sometimes it is an innocent mistake, but most of the time it is not. Adding two miles of boarder to have to watch would be a pain.
JM77 is also right, some landowners just want the hunting for themselves, especially the ones that bought the ranch for hunting or are leasing/outfitting.

 

[idahohuntr]

I don't know that I agree with that. The landowner as well as the county attorney and sheriff have the most to lose.

I think politically the sheriff and county attorney may have just shot themselves in the foot. Certainly has made their reelection questionable.

You know these players better than I obviously, just saying if they drop this case how many public land hunters are going to start corner crossing?? If the DA knows they'll lose i suppose they'd rather drop it and hope to keep things as a gray area, but I doubt they expected the public attention this is getting...and it's not to their benefit.

 

[JM77]

I think you are both right, If I have land were corner crossing applied I would worry that stepping over the corner would soon be withing 10 feet is close enough and that would soon be 100 feet and more.
I would also worry about people using the public to access my property. Every year I catch or find evidence of some one doing this. Sometimes it is an innocent mistake, but most of the time it is not. Adding two miles of boarder to have to watch would be a pain.
JM77 is also right, some landowners just want the hunting for themselves, especially the ones that bought the ranch for hunting or are leasing/outfitting.

Put a camera at the corner, jeez. Every private landowner has property lines, I swear there are those who just look for the contrary. Maybe we should make all public land that borders private off limits so landowners won't have to worry.

 

[Pestcontrol]

Well shit, if Jim magagna's opinion, an irrelevant case, and a chicken farmer is what we're up against...I best tell the 4 defense attorneys it's all over.

Pestcontrol, can you shoot me your phone number via pm? I'll forward it to the attorneys so they can consult with you since you're an expert in corner crossing cases.

Sure, will do, always happy to help educate, BTW, lawyers will take our money win, lose or draw, it makes no difference.

 

[BuzzH]

Sure, will do, always happy to help educate, BTW, lawyers will take our money win, lose or draw, it makes no difference.

Just curious where you got your law degree?

 

[Pestcontrol]

Put a camera at the corner, jeez. Every private landowner has property lines, I swear there are those who just look for the contrary. Maybe we should make all public land that borders private off limits so landowners won't have to worry.

You mean like a Set back restriction? That was mentioned earlier, probably a good idea to avoid trespassing.

 

[antlerradar]

Put a camera at the corner, jeez. Every private landowner has property lines, I swear there are those who just look for the contrary. Maybe we should make all public land that borders private off limits so landowners won't have to worry.

My bet is you are the type of hunter that passes through my place at least 1/2 before and after dark on their way to the public. An honest hunter that is just interested a good hunt. I as a landowner never have to deal with these hunters . I get to deal with the sobs every year. Over the years I have caught dozens of trespassers and found evidence of dozens more. Nealy all the hunters I have caught claim that they thought they were hunting public land. Every one of them was lying. Most honest hunters have no idea of the kind crap landowners put up with during hunting season. Landowners view hunters far differently than hunters view themselves. It is very easy to get a distorted impression of hunters when you mostly have to deal with the dishonest minority and not the honest majority. Don't think for a minute that hunters using public to trespass on adjacent private is not a concern.

 

[Dsnow9]

Neighbor kid missed a shot and sent his ball over my fence last week.

He let himself in my yard to get it.

So naturally I pulled a gun on him.

I didn’t think you were aloud to have those in MA.

 

[JM77]

My bet is you are the type of hunter that passes through my place at least 1/2 before and after dark on their way to the public. An honest hunter that is just interested a good hunt. I as a landowner never have to deal with these hunters . I get to deal with the sobs every year. Over the years I have caught dozens of trespassers and found evidence of dozens more. Nealy all the hunters I have caught claim that they thought they were hunting public land. Every one of them was lying. Most honest hunters have no idea of the kind crap landowners put up with during hunting season. Landowners view hunters far differently than hunters view themselves. It is very easy to get a distorted impression of hunters when you mostly have to deal with the dishonest minority and not the honest majority. Don't think for a minute that hunters using public to trespass on adjacent private is not a concern.

Your credibility went out the door with your first sentence; judging someone you don't know, quite the class act.

 

[Sytes]

Bah, wasted words.

Side note: Is the BHA Donation email Receipt and .pdf due to my donations made to the Gofundme site?
Email from: [email protected]

 

[Addicting]

@Pestcontrol l think it’s pretty clear why you joined. Those that have no purpose besides arguing don’t last long.

 

[seeth07]

Put a camera at the corner, jeez. Every private landowner has property lines, I swear there are those who just look for the contrary. Maybe we should make all public land that borders private off limits so landowners won't have to worry.

Did you see the Malmaison WMA attempt to do this? Don't joke about such things!

 

[antlerradar]

Your credibility went out the door with your first sentence; judging someone you don't know, quite the class act.

Put a camera at the corner, jeez. Every private landowner has property lines, I swear there are those who just look for the contrary. Maybe we should make all public land that borders private off limits so landowners won't have to worry.

It kind of looks like you are judging me as a contrary landowner that is just blowing the trespassing issue out of proportion.

All due respect, do you really think that's part of the reason landowners don't want corner crossing?

There's only one reason: they don't want anyone on the public without their permission.

Kind of looks like you are judging all landowners as greedy people that don't want people on the public because they want it for themselves.

JM77, I have looked at many of your posts, I know how involved you are in wildlife issues and how successful you are, nothing but respect. My impression is you are passionate about hunting and willing to go the extra mile. One of the reasons I am on this site is to interact with hunters like I have judged you to be. As I said above, hunters like you pass through my place in the dark and I never get to interact with them. I get to deal with the minority of slob hunters. A landowner is going to get a very jaded view of hunters if they don't make an effort to interact with the majority.

As for the landowner in this case, 100% he doesn't want hunters hoping the corner because he wants it for himself.

 

[Wind Gypsy]

I can imagine it is for a few. Certainly not the main reason though. Hard to believe that every landowner against corner crossing is a greedy bastard not wanting people to access public land. But I may be naive.

Seems reasonable to assume increased public land hunters corner crossing is likely to be accompanied by increased number of hunters making (honest or intentional) mistakes and trespassing. More wounded animals crossing on to private. More traffic and trash making it's way on to private. Those are real reasons for landowners to be against corner crossing. All that said, I believe those concerns are very small in the grand scheme of things when compared to the desire to just keep people off of public land so that they can decide who enjoys it's benefits.

There is a difference in not wanting additional people, hunter conflicts, trash, decrease in property values, etc and being rightly entitled to it. Easy to make an argument for why someone could reasonably not want corner crossing to be legal. Much harder to come up with a logical reason that isn't someone seeking the benefit of a public resource for themselves at the cost of the public.

 

[Wind Gypsy]

TLDR My FIL IMHO spends way too much time stressing out about trespassing.

Based on the stories you just told, I have a hard time seeing how he could be spending too much time stressing about it. That would drive me bonkers.

 

[VikingsGuy]

In what way does the momentary passing through the air space "invalidate the Private Landowners rightful use and full enjoyment of his lands." Wait ,I'll answer that: it doesn't. The deed that landowner has gives him no exclusive use of the public lands adjacent to his property. But rather than take my word, show me the case law that says it does. Or show me statute, that will work too.

Also, rather than mention Randy's misuse of the 5th Amendment, maybe read it yourself. That's a novel thought...

For the last 500 years, the case law has chosen to recognize a "vertical" element to property boundaries. At the elevations we are talking about here (0-30 ft), the vast majority of the case law would support literal trespass by stepping over a corner. And I am not going to google it for you - I have cited one SCOTUS case in the past and there are dozens more readily findable cases and a few decent law review summaries.

As for 5thA -- both you and Pestcontol get it wrong. If an action is a common-law physical trespass, a government easement to grant the access to void the trespass is a "taking" in the vast majority of cases. But of course, the real question is what is the amount of remuneration for such a taking. In one case about running cableTV lines without an easement, SCOTUS found trespass, found a taking, and awarded the plaintiff $1. Again, I am not googling for you or others. The law is the law regardless of whether I provide you case law citation. Feel free to do your own googling.

So we have three simple answers:

(1) The courts change 500 years of case law and vanquish trespass above ground level - if you think this through you can imagine a myriad of unintended consequences outside the arena of checkerboard hunting if they do this, so I prefer that they don't take this approach.

(2) State legislatures pass laws that remove non-destructive, good faith, corner crossing from the scope of criminal or civil trespass law. This is my preferred answer.

(3) The federal government invokes eminent domain to grant recreational "non-destructive" 15 foot wide walking easement across all corners necessary to access federal lands outside the city limits of any town that has a federal post office. Land that actively has unharvested row crops would be exempted. The takings value of these easements will be set at $25 per corner (which is more than the courts will give in most places if folks actually bother to read the takings valuation case law - I am not googling that for folks either). This is my second choice as it does not solve state land corners, but it would be a big help.

 

[Dakotakid]

There are bad landowners that truly believe they are entitled. And it is not just large landowners but also small parcels that try to block access and interfere with access. I have heard old timers say that they put water on state lease and did improvements so therefore it is theirs.

That said, the public is no better. Many on this board take the rules seriously, but that is a very very small % of the public.
Everyone of us has seen people abuse public lands. I was fortunate to camp and ride atvs before fire season forced me out of the mountains. Every time I witnessed people violating trail rules. Driving on closed trails, driving off trails.

The comment above reminds me of a podcast I heard that said people should not care so much about theft.
It is their own fault for having stuff and being upset when someone takes it.

 

[Wild Bill]

There is a difference in not wanting additional people, hunter conflicts, trash, decrease in property values, etc

Totally off topic and not trying to derail this thread, but I get such a kick out of hearing landowners/farmers/ranchers complain about hunters and anglers leaving trash in the field. Many act as if hunters and anglers are out there slinging McDonald's bags out of their packs, or showing up with an old washing machine to drop it in the ditch before they hike out for their hunt. Meanwhile I could spend an entire week filling my pickup bed with old lick tubs, empty seed bags, empty 5 gallon pales of hydraulic or engine oil, or giant rats nests of bale twine and not put a dent in the amount out there...

 

[BrentD]

...

For the last 500 years, the case law has chosen to recognize a "vertical" element to property boundaries. At the elevations we are talking about here (0-30 ft), the vast majority of the case law would support literal trespass by stepping over a corner. And I am not going to google it for you - I have cited one SCOTUS case in the past and there are dozens more readily findable cases and a few decent law review summaries.

As for 5thA -- both you and Pestcontol get it wrong. If an action is a common-law physical trespass, a government easement to grant the access to void the trespass is a "taking" in the vast majority of cases. But of course, the real question is what is the amount of remuneration for such a taking. In one case about running cableTV lines without an easement, SCOTUS found trespass, found a taking, and awarded the plaintiff $1. Again, I am not googling for you or others. The law is the law regardless of whether I provide you case law citation. Feel free to do your own googling.

So we have three simple answers:

(1) The courts change 500 years of case law and vanquish trespass above ground level - if you think this through you can imagine a myriad of unintended consequences outside the arena of checkerboard hunting if they do this, so I prefer that they don't take this approach.

(2) State legislatures pass laws that remove non-destructive, good faith, corner crossing from the scope of criminal or civil trespass law. This is my preferred answer.

(3) The federal government invokes eminent domain to grant recreational "non-destructive" 15 foot wide walking easement across all corners necessary to access federal lands outside the city limits of any town that has a federal post office. Land that actively has unharvested row crops would be exempted. The takings value of these easements will be set at $25 per corner (which is more than the courts will give in most places if folks actually bother to read the takings valuation case law - I am not googling that for folks either). This is my second choice as it does not solve state land corners, but it would be a big help.

I think #2 is also known as the Common Sense Ruling. As such, it has no chance.

Is Vegas posting odds on all the different options?