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Yachtie -> RE: Stand your ground in Missouri OH NO!!! (7/23/2013 1:32:33 PM)
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From the article - Authorities on Sunday charged Crocker with second-degree murder. He was being held Monday in lieu of $650,000 bail at the Crawford County Jail.
I'm familiar with trespass laws. Floaters have stopped there for years.
Paul Wilkerson, owner of the Rafting Co., said the float has been an annual event for the group for at least the last five years.
“They’re a real nice group of people,” Wilkerson said. “We never had any trouble or complaints regarding them.”
He said there haven’t been any problems stopping on gravel bars in the past, but the company does require floaters to sign a release saying they’ll avoid littering, stay out of posted areas and leave quickly and courteously when asked by a property owner.
In the article it says - But who has rights to do what isn’t always clear on the river.
Quite so. As far as floaters go, if they respect the property (litter, etc) the property owner has either potentially granted an easement or one potentially exists due to the nature of the river itself.
Rob Brandenburg, an agent who covers Crawford County for the Missouri Conservation Department, said property lines actually go to the center of the river. The public’s right to use this property is an easement much like a public road, Brandenburg said. A property owner owns a county road to the center of the road, for example, but a person can use that road.
Missouri needs change those laws. One cannot privately own what is accessible to the public, like the river one can float down.
“These cases are really very confusing. They are difficult to interpret,” Styron said. “You are on private property, but you have a right to be there if it’s a navigable stream and as long as you are on a gravel bar that is submerged during parts of the year, because it’s part of the stream bed.” (bolding added)
BINGO! Like no one can stop someone from being below the high water mark on the coast, private property or not.
But either way, he said, “it obviously doesn’t have anything to do with people shooting people. We don’t have a stand-your-gravel-bar law yet.”
The shooter is toast.
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