SALT LAKE CITY — The Utah Court of Appeals is deciding whether it will review the case of a couple accused of criminal trespass and trying to harm cattle by depriving them of a water source.

One of the key issues of the case is the woman's affiliation with an environmental group. Her attorney says her personal beliefs are wrongly being used as evidence against her. Prosecutors counter that she and her husband are being prosecuted for their actions, but say their personal beliefs are also relevant.

A hearing was held before the court's trio of justices on Tuesday.

Defense attorneys for Mark Franklin and environmental activist Rose Chilcoat assert there was insufficient evidence to advance the case to trial, contrary to an April ruling by 7th District Judge Lyle Anderson.

Chilcoat is the former director of the Colorado-based Great Old Broads for Wilderness and is married to Franklin.

In 2017, the San Juan County Sheriff's Office began investigating incidents at Lime Ridge off state Route 163 between Bluff and Mexican Hat.

Authorities said a local cattleman found the gate to his corral latched shut on April 1, blocking the animals' ability to get to water. Deputies found footprints, tire tracks and surveillance from a camera.

A few days later the rancher spotted the vehicle that matched the one in the footage and stopped it. Franklin and Chilcoat were inside.

The land involving the incidents is owned by the Utah School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration and has been leased for cattle grazing. Franklin, according to the investigation, said he latched the gate.

After a preliminary hearing, Anderson found there was enough evidence to order the couple to stand trial after the state said Franklin was caught on camera shutting a gate to a corral that held the cattle's only source of water.

He also found that Chilcoat's association with an advocacy organization was sufficient evidence given the circumstances of the case.

"Ms. Chilcoat's position with Great Old Broads for Wilderness, as well as her letters to the (Bureau of Land Management), show that she thinks the world would be a better place with Odell's cattle gone," Anderson wrote.

The legal relevancy between an individual's connection to an organization and an alleged criminal act occupied much of the court's attention during the hearing.

"I am all in on the precept that affiliation in an organization is protected and ordinarily could not come in with an eye to skewing the jury’s verdict," said Judge Gregory Orme.

Previous coverage:

Grazing tension erupts in criminal charges in San Juan County

Tension over grazing in San Juan County led to criminal charges being filed against an environmental activist and her husband after they were allegedly caught trespassing on trust lands and deputies say the man blocked cattle from getting to water.

If a Nazi stole a car, the theft and the man's beliefs would not be relevant, Orme noted. But if the man vandalized the car with a swastika and the car had belonged to a person of the Jewish faith or an African-American, Orme said relevancy changes.

"It strikes me now that his membership in that organization becomes very germane," he said.

John Nielsen, an attorney with the Utah Attorney General's Office, likened it to a member of Mothers Against Drunk Drivers going to bars and slashing the tires of patron's cars.

"They are not being prosecuted for their views," he said. "They are being prosecuted for their actions."

But attorney Paul Cassell said to allow the case to go to trial would have a "chilling effect" against members of advocacy organizations not only in Utah but elsewhere in the country.

"Do not allow the prosecutors of San Juan County to use the beliefs of conservation organizations as the missing link for criminal intent," he said.

Cassell is a law professor at the University of Utah School of Law arguing the merits of the defense's case before the appeals court on a number of factors that include the issue of free speech and what he says is flimsy evidence.

"There was no evidence she (Chilcoat) was even at the scene," he said. "It is clear that the state is trying to use her beliefs in this advocacy organization as a substitute for evidence."

Orme noted the evidence against Chilcoat is "thin," and there appears to be no proof that she was aware of what her husband intended to do.

The judges will rule at a later date if they will take up the case, or let the trial proceed against the couple.

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