State v. Hren

Decision Date12 October 2021
Docket NumberDA 20-0190
Citation2021 MT 264
PartiesSTATE OF MONTANA, Plaintiff and Appellee, v. CHERYL HREN and JEFFRY J. NELSON, Defendants and Appellants.
CourtMontana Supreme Court

Submitted on Briefs: September 1, 2021

APPEAL FROM: District Court of the Fifth Judicial District, In and For the County of Beaverhead, Cause Nos. DC-17-3768 and DC-17-3769, Honorable Luke Berger, Presiding Judge.

For Appellants: Michael B. Grayson, Grayson Law Firm, Anaconda Montana.

For Appellee: Austin Knudsen, Montana Attorney General, Roy Brown, Assistant Attorney General, Helena, Montana

David A. Buchler, Special Deputy County Attorney, Helena, Montana

OPINION

INGRID GUSTAFSON JUSTICE.

¶1 After a combined jury trial, Defendant and Appellant Cheryl Hren (Hren) was convicted of felony criminal endangerment by accountability, misdemeanor stalking, and felony stalking while Defendant and Appellant Jeffry J. Nelson (Nelson) was convicted of felony criminal endangerment, misdemeanor stalking, and felony stalking. Hren and Nelson appeal from the March 12, 2020 Judgment and Sentencing Order issued in each of their cases by the Fifth Judicial District Court Beaverhead County, and their cases have again been consolidated on appeal.

¶2 We address the following restated issues on appeal:

1. Did the District Court err by not dismissing the stalking charges for insufficient evidence?
2. Did the District Court err by admitting the railroad tie into evidence at the second trial after it had been exposed to the elements following the first trial and its condition deteriorated?

¶3 We affirm.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

¶4 This criminal case arises from a long-simmering feud between property owners along the Small Horn Canyon Road, located approximately ten miles south of Dillon. The dispute regarding the road has been before us previously in the civil context multiple times, and a more complete background on the history of the road and its easements may be found in our decisions in Meine v. Hren Ranches, Inc., 2015 MT 21, 378 Mont. 100, 342 P.3d 22 (Meine I) and Meine v. Hren Ranches, Inc., 2020 MT 284, 402 Mont 92, 475 P.3d 748 (Meine II).

¶5 Hren and Nelson own property and operate a ranch known as Hren Ranches[1] along the Small Horn Canyon Road, which they purchased in 1985. Meine I, ¶ 8. The Meine family owns property further up Small Horn Canyon Road, which has belonged to the family since they first homesteaded in the 1920s. Meine I, ¶ 6. Since the 1970s, there have been locked gates along Small Horn Canyon Road, placed there with the consent of neighboring landowners, who would receive a key. In 2007, the Hrens changed the locks on a gate across the road and did not provide keys to other landowners along Small Horn Canyon Road. Meine I, ¶ 13. The Meines, whose property is located beyond the locked gate, cut the Hrens' locks and chains and continued to use Small Horn Canyon Road. The Hrens made several complaints against both the Meines and Richard Blake, who maintains the property owned by the Mussard family along Small Horn Canyon Road, with the Beaverhead County Sheriff's Office (BCSO). Meine I, ¶ 14. The Meines filed suit in 2010, "seeking a determination that they hold a prescriptive easement over Small Horn Canyon Road where it crosses the Hrens' land and a permanent injunction prohibiting the Hrens from blocking or impeding the use of this easement." Meine I, ¶ 15. Ultimately, after the Meines were first granted a preliminary injunction which allowed them to use the road, the Meines (and Mussard and the Blakes) were granted a prescriptive easement in 2014, which allowed them access to Small Horn Canyon Road and prevented the Hrens from blocking or impairing that access. Meine I, ¶ 19. The Hrens appealed, and we affirmed the Meines's prescriptive easement in 2015. Meine I, ¶ 49.

¶6 The dispute between Hren and Nelson and the Meines regarding the locked gate and access to Small Horn Canyon Road did not stop after this Court affirmed the prescriptive easement in 2015, however, and the Hrens sued the Meines, Blakes, and Mussard in 2015. Meine II, ¶ 8. The Meines were granted summary judgment in that case in 2016. Meine II, ¶ 8.

¶7 On May 28, 2016, the Meines and Richard Blake traveled to the locked gate at the bottom of Small Horn Canyon Road (bottom gate). The Meines and Blake went to the bottom gate to reinstall a swinging metal gate which they had previously installed next to the bottom gate. The Hrens had removed the swinging gate and placed it in a creek before building a wooden fence where the swinging gate previously stood. The Meines and Blake removed the fence and then, after retrieving the gate from the creek and purchasing hinges in Dillon, as the gate no longer had any once it was retrieved from the creek, began to reinstall the gate. Hren and her sister, Renee Klakken, arrived to inform the Meines that they would tear down and take the gate and reinstall the fence. Nelson then arrived and again informed the Meines that they would take the gate away. Nelson and Jerry Meine got into a scuffle over the gate, which eventually calmed down before the Meines finished putting up the gate. After the Meines left, the Hrens removed the gate and reassembled the wooden fence in its place.

¶8 On September 24, 2016, Richard Blake was leading cattle out from the Mussard land and down Small Horn Canyon Road. When he arrived at the bottom gate, which has a cattle guard across the bottom, he could not get the cattle out. Blake then cut down the wooden fence the Hrens had placed where the swinging gate previously stood with a chainsaw. Jerry Meine video-recorded Blake cutting down the fence. Part of the fence was created with an upright wooden railroad tie, which Blake cut with his chainsaw near the ground level. The Meines then removed several rocks from the road and placed them to the side of the road with the fencing Blake had cut down.

¶9 On September 26, 2016, two days after the fence had been cut down with a chainsaw, Hren and Nelson returned to the bottom gate to rebuild the fence. A portion of the fence was once again created with an upright wooden railroad tie which Hren and Nelson had brought from a pile of old ties on their ranch. Prior to putting the railroad tie into the ground, Nelson drilled an approximately seven-inch decking screw vertically into the tie. On October 15, 2016, the Meines and Blake were again at the bottom gate to remove the fence put up by Hren and Nelson. Jerry Meine cleared the area around the railroad tie and began cutting the tie near ground level with his chainsaw. As Jerry was chainsawing through the tie, he felt an obstruction and stopped. Jerry then backed off and attempted to cut through from the other side. Once again, he hit an obstruction with his chainsaw and backed off. Jerry then was able to wiggle the tie and break it off, where he discovered the obstruction he hit with his chainsaw was the seven-inch decking screw placed in the tie by Nelson. Jerry's chainsaw was damaged in the incident. Jerry later reported the incident to the BCSO on November 2, 2016. BCSO Undersheriff William Knox responded to the bottom gate, where he took pictures and seized the chainsawed railroad ties as evidence. On June 1, 2017, Hren and Nelson were each charged with one count of conspiracy to commit criminal endangerment and one count of criminal endangerment, or in the alternative, accountability for criminal endangerment, for placing the decking screw into the railroad tie. As part of their conditions of release in the case, Hren and Nelson were ordered to avoid contact with the Meines and Blake and to not interfere with them.

¶10 A few days after Hren and Nelson were ordered to not have contact with or interfere with the Meines and Blake, Richard Blake and a friend were traveling up Small Horn Canyon Road to prepare for a Fourth of July party at the Meines's cabin. Past the bottom gate, there are two more gates along Small Horn Canyon Road which are relevant to this appeal. The first past the bottom gate is known as the corral gate, and the second is known as the gate at the top of the grade. When Richard and his friend got to the corral gate, they found it was closed with barbed wire. When they got to the gate at the top of the grade, they found a barricade and barbed wire on the cattleguard, along with rocks and some broken steel posts in the easement path, and discovered the cattleguard appeared to have been dug out at the end. They removed the barbed wire, rocks, and posts. After finishing work at the Meines's cabin, they returned to the gate at the top of the grade to find the barbed wire again across the cattleguard and more steel posts in the path. On July 3, Richard again traveled up the Small Horn Canyon Road. At the gate at the top of the grade, he again discovered a barricade on the cattleguard, rocks in the road, and that the cattleguard had been dug out. On July 4, the Meines and some friends were headed to their cabin for the Fourth of July party. Nelson arrived and watched them pass through the bottom gate. When the Meines got to the corral gate, they found the gate was hung on the wrong side and had been shut with tightly twisted barbed wire. The gate at the top of the grade was also shut with tightly twisted barbed wire. At trial, Richard Blake testified that from June 26, 2017, to July 4, 2017, he encountered barbed wire, barricades, and rocks in the road every time he went up Small Horn Canyon Road. He testified he never saw rocks in front of the Hren gates, but always along the Meine easement.

¶11 On July 26, 2017, the Meines again traveled the Small Horn Canyon Road to their property. Along the way, they discovered the cattleguard gate at the corral gate had been shut with barbed...

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