Wyoming lawsuit: In 2004 Bill Kearney of Douglas was acquited of trespass charges when he corner jumped. The AG memo on 25 Aug 2004 stated: “’Corner Crossing’ may still be a criminal trespass under Wyoming Statue 6-3-303. Wyoming Game and Fish enforcement officers do not have the legislative authority to enforce this statute. Unfortunately, that leaves Game and Fish in the position of referring reports of ‘corner crossing’ to the local sheriff’s or county attorney’s office.” (see attachment)
As described in postings above, the proposed bill (SF0056) looks to expand hunting violations to include simple trespass across land to hunt legal land. It tightens, not loosens, restrictions against corner crossing.
A simple expansion of the flawed logic in the proposed law would be as follows:
If I were speeding on my way to hunt, I violated a law. When pulled over and asked where I was going, I'd respond "hunting over there." At that point the officer would then say, "well, since you committed this offense while on your way to hunt, you are now guilty of a hunting violation. We now have the authority to take your tag, your gun as evidence, and we'll see you in court for a violation of the hunting regulations." Non sequitur.
If passed, this law (SF0056) would be welcomed by landowners, in that it allows wardens to enforce simple trespass.
It does not, though, address at all the legality of crossing the airspace above the property. If the law specifically said that folks could cross airspace above private land it may constitute an illegal taking of property.
However, in Camfield v. United States (1897),
the Supreme court found that obstruction of access to even-numbered lots by individually fenced odd-numbered lots was illegal. Camfield had owned many checkerboarded parcels, and fenced them with the result being the blocking off of about 20,000 acres of public domain. The Camfield decision relies on a legal maxim that holds that a landowner may use his or her property “in such a manner as to not injure that of another,” the high-court stated. To rule otherwise would be contrary to the supremacy clause of the U.S. Constitution, the opinion stated.
Camfield's fences (the red dots):
Much of the discussion centers around the Unlawful Inclosures Act.
Good article here:
https://wyofile.com/hunters-claim-in-filing-that-courts-have-okd-corner-crossing/
One current lawsuit making its way through the Federal District Court D, Wyoming is
Iron Bar Holdings LLC v. Cape (2:22-cv-00067).
Other Statutory Actions case filed on March 22, 2022 in the Wyoming District Court
dockets.justia.com
you can follow the case here:
Docket for Iron Bar Holdings LLC v. Cape, 2:22-cv-00067 — Brought to you by the RECAP Initiative and Free Law Project, a non-profit dedicated to creating high quality open legal information.
www.courtlistener.com