A group of Wyoming lawmakers are considering reaffirming that corner crossing is legal in the state.
That’s the act of crossing from one corner of public land to another, over private property. Corner crossers don’t step on private land, but they do cross through its airspace.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for 10th Circuit recently ruled this is allowed, if passersby don’t physically contact or damage the property. A lot of land in the West is “landlocked” due to checker-boarded private and public parcels. It’s a result of land disposal policies during the 1800s to promote railroad expansion.
The circuit court judges were considering a legal dispute between hunters and a landowner in Carbon County that’s been going on for five years and counting.
The county’s sheriff, Alex Bakken, said his staff is now pretty used to dealing with these crossings since they live in “ground zero” for the issue, but that could change. He and others said it would be useful to align Wyoming’s civil and criminal statutes with the court ruling.
“As time progresses and new deputies take the place and this issue becomes more and more prevalent, I think more clarification would be beneficial,” Bakken told lawmakers in a June 6 Joint Travel, Recreation and Cultural Resources committee meeting.
Others said Wyoming should wait to codify corner crossing until litigation is over.
“This issue is not settled at the federal level until it is settled,” said Brett Moline, policy advocacy director at the Wyoming Farm Bureau Federation.
Lawyers for the landowner in the corner crossing case recently applied for an extension to appeal the circuit court decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. They now have until July 16 to file, though Ryan Semerad, the lawyer for the hunters, said at the meeting that it’s “statistically rare” for the court to take up cases like this.
Regardless of that outcome, Wyoming lawmakers decided to draft a bill to affirm corner crossing is legal.
“We need to think about what we [are] leaving for future generations,” said Rep. Karlee Provenza (D-Laramie), who introduced a similar bill during this year’s legislative session that failed to move forward. “Ensuring that people can access their public land is something that I am dedicated to doing.”
Lawmakers are slated to review the draft bill at their August meeting.
