A federal judge has permanently barred a group from fencing off about 1,400 acres of U.S. Forest Service land outside Mancos, ruling that the group has no legal claim to the public land in the San Juan National Forest.
U.S. District Court Judge Daniel D. Domenico ruled Sept. 30 that the Free Land Holder Committee and its two representatives, Patrick Pipkin and Bryan Hammon, cannot install another fence or obstruct public access to the property.
The ruling comes two years after the group began hanging signs around the Four Corners region to stake their claim to the land under the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended the war between Mexico and the United States with Mexico ceding about half of its territory. The group also installed a barbed wire fence around the land.
The fence ignited a dispute with local residents, who called it an “outright theft” of public land used for hiking, biking, grazing and hunting. Residents, with tools in hand, dismantled the fence shortly after it went up, while Montezuma County Sheriff Steve Nowlin and deputies stood by to document the incident and keep the peace.
In his 12-page rulingDomenico wrote that the government’s evidence established its ownership of the land and that the group’s posted notices and proclamations do not give them any right to fence or prevent the public or livestock from accessing the land.
Government attorneys “properly supported facts, which are considered undisputed, demonstrate that the United States owns the Hallar Deed Area as a matter of law,” Domenico wrote Sept. 30. “Mr. Pipkin’s and Mr. Hammon’s asserted chain of publicly posted notices, proclamations, and the like does not have legal force and does not establish they they or the Free Land Holder Committee have ‘title by nature,’ a good-faith claim to or ‘color of title,’ ‘exclusive beneficial use,’ or any other right to fence, inclose, exclude others from, or obstruct the free passage of people or livestock over any part of the Hallard Deed Area.”
The judge also noted that Pipkin and Hammon had missed court deadlines for responding to the government’s motion for judgment.
The federal government filed a lawsuit in November 2024asking a judge to prevent the group from fencing off the land. Nowlin said at the time that the dispute should be resolved by a judge, noting that his authority did not extend to resolving civil disputes over federal land. The group agreed to pause further fence construction while the case proceeded.
The property, known as the Hallar Deed Area, was once privately owned through claims under the Homestead Act. The federal government reacquired it in 1927 after owner Fred Hallar offered the land in exchange for timber. One reason the Forest Service sought to acquire the property was to protect the watershed, court records stated.
In a 2024 interview, Pipkin told The Sun he is Native American and his group has Native American members who trace their presence on the property back “before there was a United States.” He declined to mention the tribes he was working with.
The Free Land Holder Committee’s argument in court documents focused on the capitalization of “the” in historical references to the United States. Pipkin argued that the Founding Fathers established the country as “The United States of America,” with a capital “T.” But as other documents were signed as “the United States of America, it created a separate entity.
The court record includes an unusual exchange following a February 2025 status conference, when Pipkin, who asked to be referred to as “The Man Patrick,” left 12 silver coins with a courtroom deputy despite the judge’s warning that the court could not accept them as payment for filing fees. The coins, each weighing 1 troy ounce, were valued at about $377 at the time, according to the court. Because the court could not process them as payment, the coins were placed in the finance department’s vault until Pipkin could retrieve them.
Pipkin and Hammon represented themselves in the case and did not immediately respond to emails from The Colorado Sun seeking comment about their plans for the land.
Both filed responses this week asking Domenico to amend his ruling, according to court records.
Source: coloradosun.com
