Originally Posted by
pmocek
Are you sure about that? To trespass generally means to be on someone's property when he has instructed you not to be there. I don't think breach of contract, failing to follow rules that someone asks you to follow, or even failing to follow the orders of a flight attendant constitutes trespassing.
Yep pretty sure. The person is on the property with permission (not trespassing) until they break a condition of that permission. (trespassing)
By "hard for the charge to stick" did you mean "hard for a prosecutor to convince a judge or jury that you committed the offense with which you were charged"? If so, then didn't you really mean "unlikely that you're actually guilty"?
I mean it would be technically the crime of trespass but a total waste of the court's time to hear the case. I would hope that any decent judge would look very unfavorably at his time being wasted for something so trivial.
I feel the most appropriate charge is whatever a police officer believes that you are guilty of. Charging someone with a crime without suspicion that he committed that crime would be dishonest, wouldn't it?
The LEO was not on the flight so he would have to base the charges on the complaint. Would it be reasonable for an officer to believe that the person on the plane was trespassing because the FA said the passenger broke a condition of permission? I would think so.
Let's move this out of the sky and on to the ground. I have a business, you enter and violate a condition of permission. (no shoes, no shirt, no service) By taking your shirt off after you have entered the business, you have violated the condition of permission. While you were wearing the shirt you were not trespassing, once the shirt was off you were trespassing.
On the ground, I would have to tell you to leave. If I prevented you from leaving I could be charged with kidnapping or something similar. In the air you really don't have the option of giving someone the bum's rush.
Wouldn't that just be attempting to be on someone's property after he told you not to be there?
You would think, but in the case I cited the attempted trespass came because the guy was lurking around looking for a home to burglarize. (He admitted that to me, so he may have also admitted that to the cops)
They could not get him for attempted burglary as he had not entered anyone's property. They could not get him for trespass because he had not entered anyone's property.
He was in a neighborhood when he had no business to be there, so by the prosecution's and police's reasoning he was there to trespass.