Pictured to illustrate the sheer absurdity of the current situation.
Let’s pretend that Arizona and Colorado are private property, while New Mexico and Utah are public lands.
Suppose I go from New Mexico to Utah, by stepping from one corner to the other, but I never set foot down in Arizona or Colorado.
No foul???
Look at this.
In the first link, western States are trying to make it harder to access public lands by enacting penalties for corner crossing.
In the second link, trespassing case has been transferred to Federal Court, where Federal public access laws may favor the defendants.
Because many western parcels are set out in a checkerboard fashion, it is often impossible to travel between public parcels without crossing corners.
The Federal Government can and should handle this by creating corner easements between parcels of land. One square foot of easement from each private parcel would be more than sufficient. Just enough space for people to pass through private parcels to get from one public parcel to another.
Considering that most of these private parcels consist of thousands of acres, 1 square foot is not going to be noticed.
We have that situation here in Alaska regarding native land selections per the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. Each village was allowed to select many USGS Sections around their village on which they could prohibit any non member from hunting. But they all made their selections in a checker pattern which has the effect of doubling the size of the area they control. There are no monuments in the ground at the corners so there is no way to determine or prove exactly where you are on the ground so as to be able to cross from one open section to the other without trespassing on village land.
Good news, the Federal Judge rejected attempts to return this case to State court. I believe Federal Court will be a much more favorable venue for the defendants than State court.
A few weeks ago, a Wyoming jury acquitted all the defendants of criminal trespass charges.
It would probably be pretty difficult to find a jury that would convict anybody of corner crossing.
The hunter’s prevailed in Federal Court against the landowner’s civil trespassing lawsuit. However, this is a very narrow win and only really applies in Wyoming and with checkerboard layouts.
A map that appeared in evidence at trial, showing the actual corner that was crossed.
The access road passes through both private parcels in question and one BLM tract. However, there is no access road to the second BLM parcel, forcing the corner crossing.
Again, Congress needs to step in, requiring property owners to grant an easement to allow hunters to pass through a corner between public parcels.
Public lands are not really public, if the public cannot access them.
All of those sections should have either a 33’ or 50’ easement on all sides depending on the year the survey was done, giving ample access to each diagonal adjacent section at the corners.
First of all, the BLM ALREADY owns the public parcels. The Federal Government is not acquiring ANY new land or new power.
The proposal is merely to grant an easement so that the public can access public land. For the purposes of hunting and fishing in most cases, which I would think conservatives would support.
The Federal Government owns the land, in the way that it owns Fort Liberty, Fort Eisenhower and Fort Johnson. While the Department of Defense may not directly own the land, the fact that the Federal Government owns it verses the DoD owning makes zero difference.
The BLM manages the property in exactly the same manner as if they did directly own it.
It is the underlying PURPOSE of the land that matters. The purpose is outdoor recreation, whether that be hunting, fishing, camping or simply hiking. It is intended for direct public use and the public should be able to access it to use it.
There was a case not too long ago that saw corner crossers acquitted. Or found not liable. I forget whether ot was a criminal or covil case. Either way, there are no damages.
One cold night, a camel asks his master if he can put his head in the tent for warmth. “By all means and welcome,” said the man; and the camel stretches his head into the tent. Soon after, the camel inquires if he may also bring his neck and front legs inside. Again, the master agrees.
Finally, the camel asks, “May I not stand wholly within?” With pity, the master beckons him into the warm tent. But when the camel comes forward it becomes clear that the tent is too small for them both. “I think,” the camel said, “that there is not room for both of us here. It will be best for you to stand outside, as you are the smaller; there will then be room enough for me.” And with that, the man is forced outside of his tent.
What happens when you open up a perfume bottle? Its contents are released into the atmosphere. But the perfume molecules will not stay in the spot you sprayed and, over time, will gradually fill the room. The ordered state of the perfume in the bottle is transformed into a state of disorder. As entropy—a measure of a system’s disorder—increases, the more a system is chaotic. And as we know from the Second Law of Thermodynamics, most systems move towards increasing disorder over time. This is why perfume doesn’t return to the bottle once you open it—it doesn’t return to its original state of order, it just keeps spreading around the room (This is also why an ice cube doesn’t simply reform into a cube after it has melted.)
