State v. Camp

• Decision Date: 12 April 2000
• Docket Number: No. 25151.,25151.
• Citation: 134 Idaho 662,8 P.3d 657
• Parties: STATE of Idaho, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. John B. CAMP, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: Idaho Court of Appeals

8 P.3d 657

134 Idaho 662

STATE of Idaho, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. John B. CAMP, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 25151.

Court of Appeals of Idaho.

April 12, 2000.

Rehearing Denied May 24, 2000.

Review Denied September 15, 2000.

Churchill Law Offices, Boise, for appellant. Gary L. Neal argued.

Hon. Alan G. Lance, Attorney General; Alison A. Stieglitz, Deputy Attorney General, Boise, for respondent. Alison A. Stieglitz argued. SCHWARTZMAN, Judge.

John Camp appeals from the memorandum opinion and order of the district court affirming his conviction for trespass following a jury trial in the magistrate division of the district court. Among other issues, Camp argues that his conviction should be vacated because he possessed an easement and/or license to use the property upon which he trespassed. For the reasons set forth below, we affirm Camp's conviction and sentence for trespass.

I.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

On December 6, 1997, Camp, with his horse, was at the locked and posted gate to PM Square, a rural development, when Brad Tracy, a property owner in the development, drove up to the gate on his way to his property. Tracy told Camp that the road was private and refused to admit him. Camp said that Tracy was depriving him of his constitutional rights, that he was "tired of this [expletive deleted]" and "I'm going through." Camp then got on his horse, rode through a gate on an adjacent landowner's property, through a second gate and then onto the road through the PM Square development. Tracy followed Camp up the road to Tracy's property. There, Tracy observed Camp on horseback riding over his property just off the road. Tracy signed a criminal citation charging Camp with trespass, I.C. § 18-7008, upon Tracy's property at 1892 Exeter Way within the PM Square development. Camp pled not guilty and a jury trial was held.

At trial, Camp attempted to raise, as affirmative defenses, claims that he had a license or easement based on various theories. The trial court did not permit Camp to present evidence of an oral license, but did permit Camp to make an offer of proof without restriction.

Tracy testified to the above facts. Tracy further explained that Camp did not own any property in the PM Square development and had no right to access the road for public land access because it did not lead to any public land. Tracy affirmed that only Carlos Weed and PM Square, each with a recorded easement, could use the road. Tracy's deed, reserving easements in favor of PM Square and Carlos Weed, was admitted as part of an offer of proof of Camp's theory that Mr. Weed had given him permission to use his easement. Tracy testified that Camp had no right to use Weed's easement, which was a one-time easement to build a road, log Weed's land and restore the property, all of which had been done. Tracy recalled a discussion with Camp about access to the development road, but no agreement was ever reached.

Tracy also testified that there are eight "keep out," "private property," and "no trespassing" signs between the gate to the PM Square development and Tracy's property: two on the gate to the development; one on the telephone pole next to the gate; one on an apple tree up the road; two more on each side of the road farther up; one on a log on the right hand side of the road marking Tracy's property and two more on his driveway gate.

Camp testified that on December 6, he got to the PM Square road by going through a neighboring land owner's gate, just off the PM Square road, crossing the adjacent land and then entering the PM Square road. Camp admitted that he saw the "no trespassing" signs, but said he did not believe they applied to him.

Regarding his public easement theory, Camp testified that the PM Square road was public access to federal lands he had used since 1952 as well as to condition his horses since 1985, and that an aerial photo in the county assessor's office described the PM Square road as a public easement. Jack Frasier, another neighbor with land bordering the PM Square development, testified that his lands surround the PM Square development on three sides, and that the Payette National Forest and a forty-acre tract belonging to Carlos Weed were located east of his property. In rebuttal, and over Camp's objection, Doug Kesler, a deputy county assessor, testified that the records and aerial map in the assessor's office did not indicate any county easement or interest in the PM Square road.

Camp also claimed that he had a right to use the PM Square road to monitor water and prevent theft from the Sorensen/Rinehart ditch, a lateral from Cool Creek, which runs through the PM Square development, based upon a claimed water right. On cross-examination, Camp acknowledged that he was not irrigating on December 6, the date of the alleged trespass. In rebuttal, David Lawrence, the president of the Sorensen/Rinehart ditch water users association, testified that Camp was not a shareholder and that his collection of runoff from the ditch did not give him an interest in the association's water.

In support of his oral license theory, Camp claimed Frasier had given him permission to use the PM Square road because Frasier had given him access to a key to Frasier's back gate, separating his land from the PM Square property. Frasier testified that he did so because he would rather have Camp go through the gate than take down his fence to get across with his horse. Frasier stated that he rented Tracy's land in the spring to graze his cattle and that he had the right to enter Tracy's land to care for his cattle during that time.¹ Frasier acknowledged that he sometimes used the PM Square road to access his gate and fence line, but that he contacted the realtor who sold the PM Square lots before doing so.

Finally, Mary Dickson, the daughter of Carlos Weed, testified that her father had given Camp oral permission to use his easement over PM Square. She said that, since her parents had died, she had neither retracted Weed's permission nor given Camp permission to continue using Weed's easement.

Thereafter, the jury was instructed and it returned a verdict of guilty on the trespass charge. Camp filed a motion for judgment of acquittal, which was denied. At sentencing, the court explained that, while Camp had a subjective belief that the road was public, such was not a defense. The court imposed a $300.00 fine, with $275.00 suspended, court costs, six months in jail, suspended with two years probation. The terms of probation prohibited Camp from trespassing on anyone's land.

Camp appealed. The district court affirmed Camp's conviction. Camp appeals again. We affirm.

II.

GENERAL STANDARD OF REVIEW

On review of a decision of the district court, rendered in its appellate capacity, we examine the record of the trial court independently of, but with due regard for, the district court's intermediate appellate decision. State v. Bitt, 118 Idaho 584, 585 n. 1, 798 P.2d 43, 44 n. 1 (1990); State v. Bowman, 124 Idaho 936, 939, 866 P.2d 193, 196 (Ct. App.1993).

III.

ANALYSIS

A. The Propriety of Camp's Presentation Of His Easement And License Theories As Affirmative Defenses At Trial Without Prior Notice

We have before us a situation in which, in the middle of the criminal trial and without prior notice to the magistrate or the state, the defendant sought to demonstrate that he possessed any one of several property interests or contract rights in the complainant's easement to his real property. Establishment of legally complex property and contract interests is more appropriate in a civil action to quiet title or for declaratory judgment than a criminal proceeding. Each of these interests is, in this situation, an affirmative defense with multiple elements. To meet the burden of production, Camp had to ensure that a reasonable view of the record supported the elements of his affirmative defenses of easements and licenses, i.e., he had to present facts sufficient to make out a prima facie case relevant to each defense.² Furthermore, Camp did not request or tender any specific jury instructions on his claimed defenses of license, prescriptive easement, water right or public right-of-way, other than an overly broad instruction on the definition of an easement which the district court correctly rejected as an incorrect statement of the law.

What is problematic in this case is Camp's attempt to raise all of these affirmative defenses for the first time in the middle of trial without prior notice and an opportunity to be heard.³ We must now consider whether a reasonable view of the trial record supports any one of Camp's easement or license theories.

1. Prescriptive easement

In order for Camp to be entitled to a jury instruction on the affirmative defense of prescriptive easement, Camp had to present facts sufficient to make out a prima facie case of such an easement. He had to establish his open, notorious, continuous, uninterrupted use as a true owner, under a claim of right, with the knowledge of the owner of the servient tenement, for the five-year prescriptive period. Elder v. Northwest Timber Co., 101 Idaho 356, 359, 613 P.2d 367, 370 (1980); West v. Smith, 95 Idaho 550, 557, 511 P.2d 1326, 1333 (1973); Deer Creek, Inc. v. Hibbard, 94 Idaho 533, 493 P.2d 392 (1972); I.C. § 5-203. Camp's testimony was that he had used the road since 1985 to condition his horses.

The magistrate found that the record contained no evidence to support a conclusion that Camp's use had been exclusive or that there was a dominant estate. Additionally, Camp failed to present evidence that his usage of the road was both continuous for the five-year prescriptive period and constituted some actual invasion or infringement of Tracy's private easement or of a public easement.⁴ Any of these grounds would be a sufficient basis for upholding the trial court's determination that Camp did not possess a prescriptive easement to Tracy's land. Thus, the magistrate...