Do you know "EXACTLY" what trespassing law is in you State......"EXACTLY"......???

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Sourdough

"Eleutheromaniac"
Neighbor
HCL Supporter
Joined
Mar 17, 2018
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6,151
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In a cabin, on a mountain, in "Wilderness" Alaska.
So you own "private" property, and you want to legally keep trespassers off your property. OK, Do you know your State laws......???

No-No-No........silly, not that crap that everyone believes is true........I mean the "Real" Trespassing laws in your State. The only state we did research on was Alaska, and we all thought that if you had "No Trespassing" signs spaced around the perimeter of our properties, we had it covered.

Yes......we argued about spacing between signs.......is it 50' or 25' or 10' or whatever. Turns out we were "Wrong". Yes, we were shocked, and we were pissed. But the law is the law, and what we all believed was the Alaska Trespassing Law, was wrong.

Do you really-really know, or just relying on what everyone else believes........??? You might be surprised, we were.
 
I don't know about laws, but nobody walks past this sign down here:
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And if they come onto the property from a different location, where there is no sign........??? And you go talk to them.......what is your legal rights........and more importantly what is their legal right to be on your property.

What is interesting that we all think we know. But if it got very confrontational.......would you know where to stop. I suspect it is different in many states, but it would be good to know for sure, especially if the SHTF.....but there was "Still" Rule of Law.
 
My guess is there is State Laws about trespassing, but likely different City, County, Borough, Township, whatever legal entity might have confliction laws about trespassing.

Where this could get interesting is if someone fell in the woods on your property, or scratched themselves on a tree limb while trespassing on your property, what is your legal liability. Maybe it does not matter if your have "No Trespassing" signs every six inches around your property.

I only know that Alaskans, especially Alaskans living in rural or remote Alaska, are very touchy about trespassers. But in Alaska you "Can't" stop someone from trespassing on your private property. We thought that you could........but we were "Wrong".
 
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Sourdough said:
I only know that Alaskans, especially Alaskans living in rural or remote Alaska, are very touchy about trespassers. But in Alaska you "Can't" stop someone from trespassing on your private property. We thought that you could........but we were "Wrong".
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I also mistakenly thought originally private property was exactly that..private..stay off. But where I am that only works if you are a commercial farmer. If like me, you own mostly wooded property with small personal agriculture its quite different. I have to have "No Trespassing, No Hunting" signs up every 25 feet. Which I haven't managed around the whole property yet. And even then all I can do is call the RCMP or DNR, and they probably won't be all that interested in rushing out here. I am also adding Beware the Dog signs below the No Trespassing. Most people are very wary of dogs.
 
Yes.

Signs have no force of law in regards to trespassing, But if you catch them, they have to leave or its trespassing. Brandishing and citizens arrest are allowed so the really do have to leave or end up sitting their at gunpoint until the cops show up.

As I understand it, the idea was to prevent people from just buying up thousands of acres and making them off limits to hikers without actually being there or developing it. People buying land just to be a Karen about it is a big problem around here. Most are out of staters and don't even live here, they just like having a private forest.

I'm okay with it.
 
Patchouli said:
I don't know a whole lot about trespassing but I do know that in Texas I can defend my neighbor or his/her property with a gun. In Texas my vehicle is considered part of my castle.
:brewing:
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So..........In Texas, if someone is breaking the windows on your vehicle......What can you do....??? Assuming you are not in the vehicle, but standing on your porch watching the vehicle be destroyed.....???

If you yell "Stop" but they just keep breaking windows, and then setting it on fire........what can you do "Legally" about it in Texas.....???

Most places you can do "Nothing". Now if they turned toward you with whatever they were using to break the windows, and started coming toward you........likely you could claim, you were in fear of your life.
 
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Patchouli said:
I don't know a whole lot about trespassing but I do know that in Texas I can defend my neighbor or his/her property with a gun. In Texas my vehicle is considered part of my castle.
:brewing:
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This is about "trespasser's rights" and the limitation of the property owner's rights, according to law.
I'm pretty sure if you catch someone trespassing on your property in California, you are required by law to provide:

1. An Xbox and electric power.
2. A TV with at least 36" screen.
3. Internet access.
4. All the Nacho-cheese Doritos they can eat.
5. Endless all-natural bottled spring water.

Down here, we are required to give them a chance to run before we shoot.
 
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Sourdough said:
So..........In Texas, if someone is breaking the windows on your vehicle......What can you do....??? Assuming you are not in the vehicle, but standing on your porch watching the vehicle be destroyed.....???

If you yell "Stop" but they just keep breaking windows, and then setting it on fire........what can you do "Legally" about it in Texas.....???

Most places you can do "Nothing". Now if they turned toward you with whatever they were using to break the windows, and started coming toward you........likely you could claim, you were in fear of your life.
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I don't think its nothing. What you do is, go up and and try and get in your car, and then when they raise the hammer or whatever, you become afraid for your life and deal with them. The only thing you generaly can't do is back shoot them on sight. Thats how people get in trouble.

But thats no big deal, you just have to get a little creative.

Or if you live in presumptive state, like MT, if you claim self defense you cannot be charged in the absence of evidence to contrary. Really, you have to really screw the pooch to get charged here. Like the guy a few years ago who laid a trap in his garage. He left the door open, with his wife's purse in view. When a couple kids came in, he closed the door, got his shotgun, and then opened it up again and started shooting. He went away for that. But unless your that level of stupid, there are plenty of ways to defend your property.
 
Caribou said:
In Alaska you may shoot carjackers.
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But the distinction is that you are in fear of your life. Which is different then concern for your car.

You can defend yourself if in fear of your life. You can't defend your car if you are in fear of loosing your car to a thief.
 
Sourdough said:
But the distinction is that you are in fear of your life. Which is different then concern for your car.

You can defend yourself if in fear of your life. You can't defend your car if you are in fear of loosing your car to a thief.
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Exactly. But you are not required, at least not here, to avoid placing yourself in danger. No law that I know of that says you would have to stay out of your car just because someone is breaking its windows.

You get in your car to move it because you are concerned it will be damaged, a perfectly reasonable thing to do. You shot the attacker who was attacking when you where in your car because you where in fear of your life...also a perfectly reasonable thing to do.

What you don't do is shoot the bad guy from twenty five yards away to protect your car.
 
Aerindel said:
You get in your car to move it because you are concerned it will be damaged, a perfectly reasonable thing to do.
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That would be a hard sell.........might pull it off. But you would have to convince a lot of people that "Was a reasonable thing to do".

I think most would say, "It was an Unreasonable thing to do". Including me.
 
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Sourdough said:
But the distinction is that you are in fear of your life. Which is different then concern for your car.

You can defend yourself if in fear of your life. You can't defend your car if you are in fear of loosing your car to a thief.
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(e) A person
(1) in a vehicle, or forcibly removed from a vehicle, may use deadly force upon another when and to the extent the person reasonably believes it is necessary to terminate what the person reasonably believes to be a carjacking of that vehicle at or about the time the vehicle is carjacked;
(2) outside of a vehicle may use deadly force upon another when and to the extent the person reasonably believes it is necessary to terminate what the person reasonably believes to be the theft of that vehicle when another person, other than the perceived offender, is inside of the vehicle;  this paragraph does not apply to a person outside of a vehicle who is involved in a dispute with a person inside of the vehicle who is a household member of that person;  in this paragraph, “household member” has the meaning given in AS 18.66.990 .
(f) A person justified in using force under this section does not have a duty to leave or attempt to leave the area of the encounter before using force.
(g) In (e) of this section,
(1) “carjacking” means a robbery involving the taking or attempted taking of a vehicle from a person in possession of the vehicle;
(2) “vehicle” means a “motor vehicle” as defined in AS 28.90.990 , an aircraft, or a watercraft.

EDIT: Alaska Statutes Title 11. Criminal Law § 11.81.350. Justification:  Use of force in defense of property and premises
 
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my blood pressure is low so I'm ok. Face to face interaction with other peaceful human beings works too.
There are "no trespassing" signs, then there are purple paint stripes, means same thing here.
I don't feel like analyzing laws at the moment but being less aggressive in posts would net better responses. Getting involved in the community and helping others never hurt anyone, but there's always one more disagreement.
:brewing: ha, haha.
 
Patchouli said:
my blood pressure is low so I'm ok. Face to face interaction with other peaceful human beings works too.
There are "no trespassing" signs, then there are purple paint stripes, means same thing here.
I don't feel like analyzing laws at the moment but being less aggressive in posts would net better responses. Getting involved in the community and helping others never hurt anyone, but there's always one more disagreement.
:brewing: ha, haha.
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No reason for you to read Alaska law, or me to read Texan. I've spent some time studying Alaska self defence law. Read the law and taken a class on self defence law about four times. I'm not looking for a fight but it only takes one person to start one. Knowing your local self defence law is imperative if you want to stay out of jail.
 
Sourdough said:
That would be a hard sell.........might pull it off. But you would have to convince a lot of people that "Was a reasonable thing to do".

I think most would say, "It was an Unreasonable thing to do". Including me.
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Well, I wouldn't think twice about it. I can't imagine any Jury here saying that you don't have the right to try and move your car to safety, and that when attacked, to defend yourself. Actually, forget the jury, I can't imagine it ever even going to trial.

Among other things, the law here is that self defense must always be accepted as valid UNLESS there is actual evidence to the contrary. Someone would have to actually come up with evidence that the person breaking out your car windows as not a threat. The burden is on them.

Remember the previous post about the kids in the garage? The shooter in that case was not even charged at first. His story was that someone was breaking into his garage, and that he went inside to stop them, and became afraid. And that was enough not to be charged even though he had just killed an unarmed teenager.

What got him, was when it came out days later, that he had set a trap on purpose and was watching them on security cameras and knew it was two unarmed kids.

Here. States very enormously of course.
 
Property trespass in Washington is a civil infraction.
Theft of anything worth more than a certain amount is a felony.
Arson or attempted arson is a felony.
Robbery or attempted robbery is a felony.
You have a legal right to use deadly force to stop or prevent a felony. You will be charged unless the felony is a substantial threat to you or others.

The line is not only gray but it wiggles a lot too.
 
We live in a mostly Amish community. This is good and bad . Good, in that nothing ever gets stolen. We don't lock doors, we don't have to worry about anything disappearing of any value to us. The bad, they don't have a very good concept of "private property". It is not unusual for someone to come up the house and ask if they can come look around since they used to live here. It's not unusual for the neighbors horses to hang out at our barn, or their goats visiting ours, or someone coming to ask if they can have some of the apples left on the tree, or whatever. It doesn't bother us, but our friends down the road put up huge "no trespassing " signs and fence all around so none of the Amish animals get on their land.
For hunting , usually they ask at least. If things go very much bad in this country ( true SHTF, not this corona crap) , it will be interesting to see how things develop here for us.
 
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