CA7: No trespassing sign on driveway didn’t prevent animal control officer from walking up driveway

No trespassing sign at plaintiff’s driveway didn’t make the animal control officer’s entry onto the driveway a Fourth Amendment violation. Also, “[t]he argument that a land patent exempts Shaw’s property from the law is frivolous.” Shaw v. Hall, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 3417 (7th Cir. Feb. 13, 2025):

In any event, the placement and language of the signs would not have conveyed to a reasonable officer that he could not enter the property and approach the home. The signs were located away from the front of the home: One sign was placed along the driveway about 450 feet from the home’s entrance, and the other was placed 450 feet beyond that at the intersection of the driveway and the public road. And the signs merely warned that trespassing would result in a land-use fee and noted that the property was protected by a land patent. No reasonable officer would have understood these signs to revoke the implied license to proceed up the driveway and speak with the occupant of the home.

Finally, Shaw renews his argument that post-1856 Supreme Court precedent related to the Fourth Amendment does not apply to him because the title to his property derives from a federal land patent. The argument that a land patent exempts Shaw’s property from the law is frivolous. See, e.g., United States v. Hilgeford, 7 F.3d 1340, 1342 (7th Cir. 1993) (argument that a litigant is a sovereign citizen not subject to jurisdiction of United States is frivolous); Van Zelst v. Comm’r, 100 F.3d 1259, 1261 (7th Cir. 1996) (land patent is “equivalent to fee simple ownership”).