CHALLENGE TO WHAT YOU THINK ABOUT CA TRESPASS LAWS- DEFINITION

[geolover]

Last week I got a few replies/warnings about trespassing on other people's property, so I checked things out for myself. In CA, IN GENERAL, there are three levels of trespass. An infraction, which I am mostly talking about. A misdemeanor (criminal trespass), which includes taking soil, rocks, etc, but mostly about not leaving after being asked. And aggravated" (felony) trespass.
First I read about what defines a misdemeanor. Basically occupying a property, not leaving after being asked, taking items including soil-rocks, passing through a fence or no trespassing signs (properly displayed).

Here is the legal definition of trespass (at the infraction level): California Penal Code Section 602.8 (a) Any person who without the written permission of the landowner, the owner's agent, or the person in lawful possession of the land, willfully enters any lands under cultivation or enclosed by fence, belonging to, or occupied by, another, or who willfully enters upon uncultivated or unenclosed lands where signs forbidding trespass are displayed at intervals not less than three to the mile along all exterior boundaries and at all roads and trails entering the lands, is guilty of a public offense.
(b) Any person convicted of a violation of subdivision (a) shall be punished as follows:
(1) A first offense is an infraction punishable by a fine of seventy-five dollars ($75).
- See more at: California Penal Code - PEN § 602.8 | FindLaw California Criminal Trespass & Trespassing Laws | Penal Code 602 PC

The land I'm talking about is uncultivated, not fenced, and does not have signage (three to a mile). As a matter of fact, there are no signs on most of these properties, and is not occupied, just wide open space. I'm not taking anything, just hiking, checking things out like the mind shaft that I found.

Obviously, people are going to challenge my interpretation of PC 602. But if you are, please provide specific CA law. It's not that I have to be right or that I challenge everything people tell me. This is how I learn, I don't just take someone's word or advice and apply it, I research it for myself. I remember researching this a while back when I was curious about protecting my 20 acres.

So let the conversation begin, maybe you'll bring up a good point to debunk my beliefs. Good chance I'll learn something either way.



Closely Associated Crimes with Criminal Trespass include:
PC 601(a) Trespass - threat of serious bodily injury;
PC 602(a) Trespass - remove timber of another;
PC 602(c) Trespass - injure or sever produce
PC 602(d) Trespass - remove soil or stone
PC 602(e) Trespass - dig/remove stone of street
PC 602(f) Trespass - damage/destroy highway sign
PC 602(h)(1) Trespass - injure farm animal
PC 602(i) Trespass - damage fence/gate/signboard
PC 602(k) Trespass - intent to interfere with business
PC 602(m) Trespass - enter & occupy property
PC 602(n) Trespass - drive vehicle on private property
PC 602(p) Trespass - enter closed lands
PC 602((q) Trespass - refuse or fail to leave building
PC 602(r) Trespass - ski in closed area
PC 602(s) Trespass - refuse to leave hotel/motel
PC 602(t) Trespass - enter or refuse to leave property
PC 602(w) Trespass - refuse to leave women's shelter
PC 602(x)(2)(c) Trespass - maternity ward
PC 602.5(a) Trespass - unauthorized entry of dwelling
PC 602.8(a) Trespass - fenced area or posted land
PC 602.13 Trespass enter into animal enclosure at zoo
PC 602.9(b) unlawful renting of residential dwelling
PC 602.10 Obstruct teacher/student at college

 

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[FreeBirdTim]

I don't know what the laws are in CA, but here's my take. Unless I know the land is public land, I stay off of it. Just because someone hasn't posted "No Trespassing" signs everywhere doesn't mean you have a right to walk on their private property.

We have a lot of undeveloped wooded areas in my town. I'd love to detect them, but they must belong to someone, so I steer clear. Most aren't posted, but that doesn't give me the right to walk on their land.

Going on private property will give all metal detectorists a bad rep. Simple rule, only detect on public land or on land you have written permission to detect on.

 

[boogeyman]

As former California officer, the rule of thumb I gave when asked was If you step off the curb, you're trespassing. Someone pretty much owns any land a road or street abuts. If you read the Penal Code like you have you've pretty much figured that one out. Don't know about these days, but the trespass was an officers discretion thing. Mostly it was used to pad charges on an arrest. If you had someone on weak or sketchy charges you'd add trespass on just so the DA would have something to throw out, and they would still have another charge or two. Also, if you have nothing on someone at the time, you hit them with trespass so if you come up with something later you know you can find them at court, or if they FTA you got a bench warrant to use when you catch up to them.

A good example in Orange County if you spit on the sidewalk ticket & fine. In Costa Mesa, Newport Beach, Huntington Beach, if you sit down on a sidewalk you guessed it! Ticket & fine. Dumb catch all law, but it generates revenue for the city.

Basically if you have to ask, you already know the answer. Me? I'd take the risk. As far as fighting it? Not a chance in the world you'd get anywhere! It's a way too handy law (catch all) to have on the books! So looks like the only thing you can do if you want to stay 100.1% legal is to move out of the state or stay in your car and look out the windows.

 

[geolover]

pretty interesting point of view. Did you catch some of the back and forth conversations in prospecting for gold? It got very interesting with some good arguments being made (mostly by me). Ha!
http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/g...y-believe-about-california-trespass-laws.html

So would carrying the exact wordage of the penal code on my person help in defending myself against an officer's discretion, provided that I was doing nothing outside the law or inside the law, whichever is correct?

 

[geolover]

I wouldn't metal detect in this situation, just hike and explore.

 

[goldenIrishman]

Interesting research Geo. IMHO it's still a good idea (as well as polite) to ask permission from the owner. Because of the mine on their property I"m pretty sure that there are going to be liability issues involved as well. If the owner is uncertain about allowing you to check it out, offer to sign something that will absolve him of any responsibility should you get hurt while on his property. It might help your cause with him or it might not. That's going to depend on his/her mood at the time.

 

[geolover]

Interesting research Geo. IMHO it's still a good idea (as well as polite) to ask permission from the owner. Because of the mine on their property I"m pretty sure that there are going to be liability issues involved as well. If the owner is uncertain about allowing you to check it out, offer to sign something that will absolve him of any responsibility should you get hurt while on his property. It might help your cause with him or it might not. That's going to depend on his/her mood at the time.

I completely agree about the polite part and in asking permission. From past inquiries, it's been my experience that the owner or more often, owners (a group or co) are from out of state and are just sitting on the land as an investment. It makes it a little more difficult to track them down. And yes, liability is a major concern for anyone.
I'm going to track down the owners this week, gotta go to the record's department because the county's website wasn't working. If their pension website were down, it would be up in no time, don't get me started.

 

[boogeyman]

pretty interesting point of view. Did you catch some of the back and forth conversations in prospecting for gold? It got very interesting with some good arguments being made (mostly by me). Ha!
http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/g...y-believe-about-california-trespass-laws.html

So would carrying the exact wordage of the penal code on my person help in defending myself against an officer's discretion, provided that I was doing nothing outside the law or inside the law, whichever is correct?

NOPE! Save that for court. An officer isn't going to stand on the side of the road debating law with you. Probably just get pissed and start looking for more charges to add. The best thing you can do in that situation is to pack your s**t and git! End the situation as quickly and nicely as you can. If you get ticketed, fight it in court. Remember, most of these laws and ordinances are in place to basically generate revenue for the citys / states coffers. When you take it to court it starts costing them more than the cites worth. Nine times out of ten the officer won't make it to court to testify - dismissed. You fight it and most likely the least you'll get is a reduction in the fine.

One thing to remember ANY time you get a dismissal for anything that would show up on your drivers license, ask the clerk or bailiff for a copy of the abstract!! They'll tell you they send it to Sacramento, but if for some reason good or bad it gets lost you'll end up with a Failure To Appear (FTA), so you want to keep a copy of it with your DL for a few months just in case. Beats sitting in a cell "while they sort things out"

 

[Tom_in_CA]

geo-lover, interesting research and post. And interesting answers so far. You are probably right, that if there's no fence, no signs, and no *obvious* reasons why it's off-limits (like if it's the turfed front yard of someone's home), then you probably would be off-the-hook. Does that make it right ?, well, no. Because in this case you've stacked the deck by ALREADY SAYING in-this-post that you know it's private. The type laws you're alluding to are for the implicit function to-the-degree of that someone would have had no way to know. So your question is rigged, since you start the question by telling us you already know. Doh!

Thus basically what you're asking, is a sort of "legally can I wriggle out of it?" type question. And stop and think for a minute: You're asking this on forum where some people think you need permission to hunt public sandboxes. So what type answers did you expect ?

 

[hvacker]

I once had a book giving the different States laws concerning "Squatters Rights" and California was one of the most liberal.
Unless laws have changed squatting was legal if certain qualifications were met. The most important was you couldn't sneak around you had to be vocal that it was your land. After a certain number of years it became yours. The book had the time to possess from the least 7 years to 21 years. Ca was 7 years.
Today with real estate taxes it's probably easier to throw a squatter off the land but possession is still a factor especially if there is no one to disprove it.
An example might be a landowner dies and has no known relations and stops paying taxes on it.

It's different from Homesteading as my understanding it's a legal way to own land but you need to show improvement. I once knew a guy in Alaska that was homesteading and he planted potatoes as an improvement.

It would be interesting if any here know of any laws on he books about squatting vs trespassing.

 

[Dr. Syn]

Not California, but something to think about. I own a bunch of land in PA. I was going to post it, No Trespassing. In talking with some of my legal friends they asked me if I had noticed that none of the land adjacent to mine wasn't posted as such? Being a dummy I asked "Okay, why?"

What I was told was that if you post No Trespassing, you are inadvertently saying their is a danger on the property. So someone trespasses and gets hurt they can sue you for said danger, yeah even though they were trespassing. Yes, something as silly as a rock they trip over, let alone the mine shaft they fall into, or the cliff they go over, or the stream they drown in.

With no signs, you are basically saying you know of no such danger, and anyone who trespasses does so at their own risk. So when they run into the pack of wild dogs, or get a load of buckshot in the butt from someone, you don't know anything about it. They assume the risk when they cross the border onto someone else' property.

What I'm getting at is, someone somewhere owns that property. Follow the Golden rule. You wouldn't want me traipsing back and forth in your front yard just because you didn't have a sign or fence up. If I do I'm going to sue for the rip in my jeans when I climbed over the fence.

No problem with squatters on my place, the yahoos that roam the woods up there keep visitors to a minimum, and nobody stays long.