If you are on anothers property without permission and the landowner wants to pursue charges for trespassing and sign a complaint then any Sheriff, State Trooper, or local Police Officer will arrest based on the land owner's complaint. Penal Law Section 145.05....A person is guilty of trespass when he knowingly enters or remains unlawfully in or upon premises. Premises bieng defined as "any building or real property". Now under the penal law as you said if this land is unimproved, unused neither fenced or otherwise enclosed to keep out intruders or conspicuously posted it would be thier word against yours and all they would have to do is articulate how they use the land. If it contains an outbuilding or a food plot or plantings is it considered improved? Now I would feel uncomfortable signing the complaint myself which is why the landowner would be signing the complaint, and would try to encourage the landowner to just let a warning be sufficient. Too many gray areas and the benefit of the doubt would be with the landowner. Your research is pretty good but until you know all the variables including landowners interpretation of the land's use, it's best to get permission. Like I said until the landowner complains, your are technically ok. But get an anti-hunter land owner and I can almost bet they will come up with a use or improvementfor the land. There are many ways to interpret the law and sometimes it reads like stereo instructions.

Technically it could be done. Entered being the key word. Would it get thrown out.....probably. Would I be comfortable with the whole thing...no. But if they want to sign the complaint......I hope no one would ever be that petty but in this day and age who knows.....I am just voicing worst case scenarios.

Just out of curiosity, how do you make it stick. If someone is hunting ten feet onto someone's property, but then walks away as soon as they are approached, then isn't it an issue of your word against theirs? To complicate things even more, what if there is no fence to mark the boundary. How could you even prove that a trespass occurred?

ultimatley it lies with the decision of a magistrate or judge whether the burden of proof has been met in this case. A violation is not entitled to a jury trial in NY State as it is not a crime, but a non-jury trial, with a decision to be made by the judge.Lots of gray areas and once again just worst case scenarios.

I'm not sure how it works in New York, but in MO if someone is following you around, acting threatening or verbally threatening you, then you have every right to defend yourself.

I don't care how it works anywhere. If somebutt clown pulls what that fellow did, he is going to get butt-stroked with a Remington 870. Case closed.[:@]

harassing hunters is illegal in New York, but using excessive force on someone verbally harassing you will give hunters a bad name and end up with criminal charges against you. If you are hunting, and someone is harassing you , by all means call the authorities and press charges against them. A few of these get publicised and maybe the antis will think twice before harassing a hunter.

If I'm out in the middle of nowhere and some guy is yelling at me and then he starts following me as I walk away, I'm gonna take care of business, then worry about the paperwork later. My tolerance for nonesense is pretty low.

That sucks what happens but sad to say there are people out there like that. I don't mean anyone particular but i had to edit several people's post in regards of language. Please watch the language everyone

Just friendly reminder about the HNI rules:

1. No vulgar language or profanity - This includes inappropriate words, inappropriate sexual references and other vulgar statements. There are word filters in place for a reason, DO NOT try to bypass them with alternate characters or spellings

I guess that the term "sucks" has really been rehabilitated in recent years