The Illinois Appellate Court has overturned the misdemeanor conviction of a man who admitted harassing hunters on property next to where he lives.
Daniel Holm can withdraw his guilty plea to “willful obstruction or interference with lawful taking of wild animals under the Hunter and Fishermen Interference Prohibition Act” stemming from a December 2012 incident, the three-judge panel held.
In its unanimous decision, the court said that the anti-harassment law exempts disruptive behavior that involves legal use of one’s own property by landowners and tenants.
Holm acknowledged that he and his father had interfered with two men who were hunting whitetail deer on an adjoining 130-acre parcel but argued that the law didn’t apply because they had stayed on his grandmother’s land where they lived. They had whistled, clapped, pretended to cough and sneeze, revved their ATV and kicked a can with a rock in it to scare the deer, according to court documents.
The affected hunters were the neighbor’s relative, Alexander Kerr, and a state conservation officer who was present because of reports that Holm’s father had been disrupting hunts. The conservation officer made the arrests.
Kerr had hunted there for 10 years and had erected five tree stands and two ground blinds on a wooded part of his in-laws’ property, according to legal documents.
Holm and his father never left his grandmother’s land.
The incident wasn’t spurred by anti-hunting sentiments, according to lawyers on both sides of the case.
“Their motivation was to prevent trespass onto their property,” defense lawyer Christopher Carroll of Ottawa, Ill., said, and Kerr and the conservation officer “were prowling right next to my client’s property line with firearms shooting live rounds.”
Carroll also said Kerr, the conservation officer and county prosecutor were trying “to repeal the statutory exemption through criminal prosecution, which is improper. This is the prerogative of the legislature.”
Laura DeMichael of the State’s Attorneys Appellate Prosecutor’s office, said, “Neighbors had been harassed by the Holms before in other ways, but the case just happened to involve hunting.”
Referring to testimony at the father’s trial, DeMichael said other incidents included a conflict between the Holms and a nearby Boy Scout camp and harassing a visitor to a neighbor’s house.
Holm, who had initially represented himself, said he pled guilty to avoid possible jail time because he and his father, who was charged with the same crime, were the sole breadwinners for their family, including Holm’s grandmother and disabled brother.
The lower court judge fined Holm and imposed a one-year conditional discharge. The judge also ordered him not to harass, threaten or intimidate Kerr, Kerr’s friends and relatives, surrounding property owners and members of the Deer Lake Dam Association.
The father’s jury conviction was earlier reversed on appeal.
In the new decision written by Justice Mary McDade, the appeals court said, “The plain language of the hunter harassment statute exempts from its sweep the legal use of land by landowners and tenants,” a category that includes Holm.
The court found it unnecessary to rule on Holm’s argument that the anti-harassment law is unconstitutional.
DeMichael said the prosecution won’t appeal further.
A Colorado law firm that describes itself as “lawyers for hunters” criticized the ruling.
“Doesn’t it follow that the permissive use of your own private property ends when that use interferes with your neighbor’s use and enjoyment of his or her own property?” The firm, Feldman Nagel LLC, said on its website, wildlifelaw.com, “Why would the court not take into account the effect of a particular use on the properties nearby? The court’s decision here not only affects hunters whose neighbors may have some interest in disturbing the hunting efforts next door, but to landowners in general.”
The firm said most states have anti-hunter harassment laws.