Trespass bill enters rocky terrain

Idaho legislators are rewriting the state's trespass statutes to make the rules more clear and the penalties stiffer - but critics say the bill is confusing and will lead to more problems.

Those problems include the possibility of subjecting otherwise well-intentioned people - such as hunters and hikers who unwittingly wander onto private ground - to prosecution, and creating headaches for law enforcement agents responding to petty neighborhood disputes.

According to an analysis from the state attorney general's office, if the bill becomes law, it could put trespassers at risk of being shot if the proposed "stand your ground" bill also becomes law - that bill has passed both chambers and awaits the governor's signature.

The 21-page trespass bill sponsored by Rep. Judy Boyle of Midvale was approved in the House earlier this month but was tripped up in the Senate Environment and Resources Committee on Wednesday. The bill is expected to be amended to address the identified problems and could be on the Senate floor as soon as Monday. If amended and passed there, the bill would then go back to the House for reconsideration.

People who spend time outdoors testified against the bill, and many landowners, including farmers and ranchers, offered their support during Wednesday's hearing. The landowners told senators stories of bad experiences involving hunters, and the reluctance of law enforcement officers to respond to trespass incidents in a timely manner and of prosecutors to pursue cases. Many of the recreationists who testified said they support stiffening penalties for trespassing but don't like measures that reduce the responsibility of landowners to post notices on undeveloped land.

Boyle said the bill is needed to shore up trespassing laws and deter bad actors. She called current trespass laws a "joke."

"I've heard tons of horror stories," she said. "I've heard tons of sportsmen say, 'We don't trespass,' but guys who do give everybody a bad name."

She dismissed critics who say the bill will hurt hunters, anglers and trappers.

"I'm a sportsman; this is not hurting sportsmen," she said. "I'm the one who authored the right to hunt, fish and trap - the constitutional amendment. I felt it was important but in (that constitutional amendment) is also language that says this doesn't give the right to trespass on private property."

Critics said they also oppose trespassing and agree the civil and criminal penalties can be increased to serve as a deterrence. However, they said the bill tilts trespass law too far in landowners' direction. According to their arguments, the language now makes it too easy for people to lodge frivolous trespass charges stemming from petty neighborhood disputes that will bog down law enforcement agencies.

"Words mean everything to us. When you take these words at face value, we see problems," said Meridian Police Chief Jeff Lavey, representing the Idaho Chiefs of Police Association. "We respond to calls every day between neighbors. We have neighbors who antagonize neighbors for the most silliest of stuff. This bill just further empowers them to do what they do."

Leaders of outdoor groups believe provisions that relax requirements for landowners to mark undeveloped land threatens to snag otherwise well-intentioned hunters, anglers, hikers and others on public land for accidentally straying onto private ground.

"We have concerns it's going to make criminals out of many well-intentioned Idahoans who are just going out for a hike or berry picking or mushroom picking or off bird hunting on the Salmon River breaks," said Jonathan Oppenheimer of the Idaho Conservation League. "There is very little notification of where boundary lines are, and they take one wrong step and all of a sudden they are criminals."

For decades, Idaho landowners were required to post notices on undeveloped property with either no trespassing signs or orange paint at a distance of every 660 feet if they wanted to people to be legally liable for trespassing. That provision is stripped in this bill and replaced with requirements that undeveloped, unfenced or uncultivated private property adjacent to public land be posted with conspicuous signs or orange paint along fence lines and along navigable streams, roads, gates and rights-of-way. Under current law, private land with public roads running through also may be posted with no-trespassing signs at the beginning and ending of the property.

Boyle countered that people have a responsibility to know where they are and that the bill's language says property must be posted in such a way a "reasonable person" would know it's private.

"Everybody gets lost, I understand that," she said. "I don't know any landowners who are not going to be sympathetic to that. If you are lost, you are lost. You are not purposefully or intentionally trespassing."

Others said it could deepen acrimony between landowners and people who recreate outdoors. They said they were turned away when they offered to work with Boyle and others.

"We think this bill as written drives a wedge between landowners and hunters and anglers and recreationists," said Michael Gibson of Trout Unlimited at Boise. "We think we can do better."

Brian Brooks of the Idaho Wildlife Federation protested the bill's provision allowing landowners to recoup attorney fees and investigative costs associated with civil prosecutions without similar language giving people who successfully fend off civil trespass cases the ability to do the same.

"That person will not be able to recover their legal fees if they are found innocent," he said.

An opinion from the attorney general's office indicates the bill could embolden landowners to take extreme measures against trespassers.

"The overlap between the proposed amendments to various trespass statutes and pending self-defense bills adopting stand your ground/castle doctrine language would likely increase the risk of serious injury or death to otherwise innocent trespassers," wrote Deputy Attorney General Kristina M. Schindele.

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Barker may be contacted at ebarker@lmtribune.com or at (208) 848-2273. Follow him on Twitter @ezebarker.