United States v. Kenneth M. Caudle

This case involves the offenses of moving survey markers and building a road on National Forest land.

Caudle was hired by property owners to cut timber on their ranch. The ranch was surrounded by a national forest. At the rancher’s request, the government surveyed the boundary and clearly marked it, to avoid inadvertent trespass.

The government charged Caudle with stealing trees, destroying a survey line, and constructing a road on National Forest land. He went to trial before a magistrate judge, without a jury. The magistrate judge found a reasonable doubt about whether Caudle had taken the trees or someone else had, so he acquitted on that count, but convicted on the other two.

Caudle argues insufficiency of evidence on the boundary marks conviction. The statute reads:

18 U.S.C. § 1858 (1988).

Caudle argues that the orange fiberglass boundary signs on posts he moved were not, as a matter of law, any of the things which a person is prohibited from moving by this statute. His point is not frivolous, even though he plainly meant willfully to toss away the physical evidence of where the property line lay. The problem is that the statute does not speak of any boundary markers,…