Attorney who backed Trump on Jan. 6 now urging Supreme Court to hear corner-crossing case

An attorney widely known for his involvement in President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election told WyoFile on Sunday why he will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to consider Fred Eshelman’s failed corner-crossing lawsuit.

John Eastman, an attorney well-practiced in Supreme Court cases and perhaps most famous for joining Rudy Giuliani on stage at the Jan. 6, 2021, “Save America” rally in Washington, D.C., explained his reasoning in an email. 

“The decision [by the 10th Circuit] effectively takes an easement on private property without compensation, in violation of the Takings Clause of the Constitution,” Eastman wrote WyoFile. “That, and because it affects so much private property, makes it an extremely important case for the Supreme Court to review.”

The U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled earlier this year that four hunters did not trespass on Eshelman’s ranch after corner crossing to hunt on public land surrounded by Eshelman’s property. The wealthy North Carolina resident and owner of Carbon County’s Elk Mountain Ranch petitioned the Supreme Court to take up the case.

The hunters never set foot on Eshelman’s land, but did pass through the airspace above his property. The businessman sued the hunters in civil court to stop them from corner crossing.

In his petition for a writ of certiorari, Eshelman’s attorneys said the 10th Circuit ruling “steamrolls state law, takes easements, and revolutionizes property law affecting up to 150 million acres of private land.” Some 2.4 million acres of public land in Wyoming and 8.3 million acres nationwide would be “corner locked” and inaccessible if corner crossing is ruled illegal, according to the digital mapping company onX.

Conservative think tank

“[W]e plan to file an amicus curiae brief on behalf of the Claremont Institute Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence in support of the petition for writ of certiorari in the above-referenced matter,” Eastman wrote hunters’ attorney Ryan Semerad on Friday.  

Semerad provided a copy of the email after a request from WyoFile. He has said the Supreme Court does not need to take up the issue, and the 10th Circuit decision should stand.

Eshelman alleged three Missouri men trespassed in 2020 and four in 2021 to hunt near his roughly 22,000-acre ranch. The hunters stepped only on public land when hunting on federal, state and municipal property surrounded by Eshelman’s Elk Mountain Ranch.

The legal fight emerged from the checkerboard landscape of alternating public-private square-mile sections in southern Wyoming. The pattern is a relic of the railroad grant era of the 1800s and covers a swath of the state, 40 miles wide and about 200 miles long.

Hunters Bradly Cape, Phillip Yeomans, John Slowensky and Zachary Smith successfully fought Eshelman’s suit — and misdemeanor criminal charges — arguing they were protected by the 1885 Unlawful Inclosures Act. That law seeks to preserve public access to public land in the West.

The 10th Circuit decision that the hunters did not trespass applies to Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Utah and parts of Yellowstone National Park in Montana and Idaho. A ruling from the Supreme Court would institute legal uniformity across the country.

Briefs due Monday

Eastman and others who want to inform the Supreme Court whether it should hear Eshelman’s appeal are scheduled to file their opinions by Aug. 18. The Wyoming Stock Growers Association, the Wyoming Wool Growers Association, the Montana Stockgrowers Association and United Property Owners of Montana have indicated that they will join the fray.

The court on Friday granted the hunters an extension. They now have until  Sept. 17 to file their rebuttal.

Eastman’s conservative Claremont Institute is a think tank and advocacy group whose mission is “to restore the principles of the American Founding to their rightful, preeminent authority in our national life.” The group’s Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, of which Eastman is the founding director, fights to uphold property rights, among other things.

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Eastman is a member of the Bar of the Supreme Court, according to his email letterhead. He has represented more than 20 parties in front of the Supreme Court and represented amici curiae in more than 100 cases in that venue, according to his bio on the Claremont Institute website.

He was a clerk for Justice Clarence Thomas from 1996 to 1997, according to his bio.

Chapman University honored him for faculty excellence in scholarly and creative activity (2013), Franciscan University gave him the St. Thomas More Award (2010) and the J. Reuben Clark Society of Orange County gave him the J. Reuben Clark Award (2010), Eastman’s bio states.

2020 presidential election

Eastman is widely known for his role in advocating that then-Vice President Mike Pence had the authority to challenge states’ electoral votes that gave Joe Biden the victory in the 2020 election. At the Jan. 6, 2021 “Save America” rally on the Ellipse with Giuliani, he championed unproven allegations of voter fraud.

“We know there was fraud,” he said, “we know dead people voted.”

Shortly thereafter, rioters stormed the Capitol.

Eastman’s actions tangled him in a cobweb of legal trouble. The State Bar of California in 2023 charged him with 11 disciplinary counts alleging he planned, promoted and assisted Trump’s alleged strategy to overturn the 2020 election results. The California Bar had earlier warned it was investigating Eastman for “moral turpitude, dishonesty, and corruption.”

The Department of Justice and the State of Georgia indicted Eastman for his role in the 2020 election. Judge Tanya Chutkan dismissed the federal action, and the Georgia cases have been paused.

Eastman lists his California and Washington, D.C. licenses to practice law “temporarily inactive.” He has challenged the California charges and asked, unsuccessfully, that his license be reactivated.