Boulder land Heist--Coloradoans really hate what these people did.

[Democrats_win]

I don't know much about the law, but I know a crime when I see it:


http://www.boulderweekly.com/?site_id=619&id_sub=12492&page_id=12492&pagenum=9

Details of the McLean/Stevens heist are well known, but for background it goes like this: Don and Susie Kirlin planned to build on property they bought near their home on Hardscrabble Drive some 24 years ago. McLean (former Boulder mayor) and Stevens, who live next to the property, didn’t want a home next door. When they heard of the Kirlins’ plans, they began boasting to neighbors about their plot to claim the property.

One unimpressed neighbor told Susie Kirlin about the sinister ploy when they crossed paths at the Boulder High vs. Fairview football game. In response, the Kirlins began erecting a fence.

McLean, seeing the fence go up, confronted Don Kirlin and said the property was the subject of a legal dispute. Within two hours McLean had a stop-work order, provided by judge crony Morris Sandstead. Another judge crony, James C. Klein, quickly heard the case for adverse possession. The law allows someone to claim ownership of property if they have “possessed” it continuously for 18 years — even by willful trespass — without permission of the owner. It’s intended to discourage absentee ownership, and most commonly comes up when a building or fence was erected before the dawn of accurate mapping, or in cases of poorly documented, fuzzy boundaries. It’s designed to help the person whose neighbor wants him to move a 30-year-old garage, upon learning that it’s four-inches over a property line.

The Kirlins walked by their land daily. They paid taxes on it, maintained it, complied with covenants, and paid the covenant fees. In court, Judge Klein used softball questions to help McLean and Stevens argue they had trespassed on the land for decades, using it for a woodpile and as a shortcut to their home.... In swift fashion, Klein gave his colleagues the land. Then McLean and Stevens filed a motion seeking legal fees from the Kirlins, and they still want an additional strip of the Kirlins’ land.
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More at link. Democrats and Republicans hate that these people "legally" stole their neighbor's land. It is absolutely terrible that several lawyers have written letters saying that this was perfectly legal. It was perfectly unlAWFUL as far as 99% of good Coloradoans are concerned. BTW, the columnist who wrote the link is one of the worst conservative columnists in Colorado, but even he got this one right. Prepare the tar and feathers for these terrible theives and the judges who aided them!

[blondie58]

1. this is theft, pure and simple

and this law needs to be dropped from the books. I had heard that the Kirlins offered them a small strip of land, which offer was turned down, as they wanted more. I sure hope that McLean/Stevens don't win their case.