Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/246/343/
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 09:12:56+00:00

Document:
Second. It is also urged that the Idaho statute, being a criminal one, is so indefinite in its terms as to violate the guaranty by the Fourteenth Amendment of due process of law, since it fails to provide for the ascertainment of the boundaries of a "range" or for determining what length of time is necessary to constitute a prior occupation a "usual" one within the meaning of the act. Men familiar with range conditions and desirous of observing the law will have little difficulty in determining what is prohibited by it. Similar expressions are common in the criminal statutes of other states. [Footnote 10] This statute presents no greater uncertainty or difficulty, in application to necessarily varying facts, than has been repeatedly sanctioned by this Court. Nash v. United States, 229 U. S. 373, 229 U. S. 377; Miller v. Strahl, 239 U. S. 426, 239 U. S. 434. Furthermore, any danger to sheep men which might otherwise arise from indefiniteness is removed by § 6314 of Revised Codes, which provides that "[i]n every crime or public offence, there must exist a union, or joint operation, of act and intent, or criminal negligence."
The Idaho statute makes no attempt to grant a right to use public lands. McGinnis v. Friedman, 2 Idaho 393. The state, acting in the exercise of its police power, merely excludes sheep from certain ranges under certain circumstances. Like the forcible entry and detainer act of Washington which was held in Dence v. Ankeny, ante, 246 U. S. 208, not to conflict with the homestead laws, the Idaho statute was enacted primarily to prevent breaches of the peace. The incidental protection which it thereby affords to cattle owners does not purport to secure to any of them, or to cattle owners collectively, "the exclusive use and occupancy of any part of the public lands." For every range from which sheep are excluded remains open not only to all cattle, but also to horses, of which there are many in Idaho. [Footnote 15] This exclusion of sheep owners under certain circumstances does not interfere with any rights of a citizen of the Unite states. Congress has not conferred upon citizens the right to graze stock upon the public lands. The government has merely suffered the lands to be so used. Buford v. Houtz, supra. It is because the citizen possesses no such right that it was held by this Court that the Secretary of Agriculture might, in the exercise of his general power to regulate forest reserves, exclude sheep and cattle therefrom. United States v. Grimaud, 220 U. S. 506; Light v. United States, 220 U. S. 523.
"Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, that all enclosures of any public lands in any state or territory of the United States, heretofore or to be hereafter made, erected, or constructed by any person, party, association, or corporation, to any of which land included within the enclosure the person, party, association, or corporation making or controlling the enclosure had no claim or color of title made or acquired in good faith, or an asserted right thereto by or under claim, made in good faith with a view to entry thereof at the proper land office under the general laws of the United States at the time any such enclosure was or shall be made, are hereby declared to be unlawful, and the maintenance, erection, construction, or control of any such enclosure is hereby forbidden and prohibited, and the assertion of a right to the exclusive use and occupancy of any part of the public lands of the United States in any state or any of the territories of the United States, without claim, color of title, or asserted right as above specified as to enclosure, is likewise declared unlawful, and hereby prohibited."

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