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Durango resident Mark Franklin – husband of prominent local environmentalist Rose Chilcoat – will stand trial April 1 for allegedly trying to kill cattle two years ago after he closed a corral gate on grazing lands in southeastern Utah.

If convicted, Franklin faces a maximum sentence of six years in jail.

“Mr. Franklin looks forward to his day in court and is confident the evidence will exonerate him,” said Franklin’s attorney, Paul Cassell, a professor of law at the University of Utah.

The case has taken many twists and turns during the past two years.

On April 1, 2017, Utah rancher Zane Odell noticed the gate to one of his corrals between Bluff and Mexican Hat had been closed. Trail cameras reportedly captured images of a vehicle that stopped at the gate, and, two days later, Odell stopped the same car driving by and called the police.

Odell and prosecutors believe Franklin closed the gate to purposely cut the cattle off from water.

When deputies arrived, Franklin admitted to closing the gate. He has never offered a detailed explanation of why, other than to say he was “helping” the rancher. Regardless, the couple said a large section of the fence was down, allowing cattle full access to water.

Odell has conceded this point, saying there was a 10-foot opening in the fence 50 feet away.

Chilcoat and Franklin were let go without charges. Nine days later, however, the San Juan County Attorney’s Office filed felony and misdemeanor charges. San Juan County Attorney Kendall Laws, who is prosecuting the case, declined comment for this story.

The Durango couple have maintained for the past two years the charges are an act of retaliation for Chilcoat’s years of environmental work with the Great Old Broads for Wilderness in San Juan County, where public lands and grazing issues are highly contentious.

In July, the Utah Attorney General’s Office said there was not enough evidence against Chilcoat to bring her case to trial and dismissed all charges. Franklin, however, will go to trial, but in Carbon County, after a judge said he would not get a fair trial in San Juan County.

Franklin’s most serious charge is “wanton destruction of livestock,” a third-degree felony that carries up to five years in prison. The second charge, trespassing on state lands, carries up to one year in jail.

The destruction of livestock charge is a relatively new law in Utah, enacted in 2009.

Since coming into law, about 20 people have been charged, mostly on the misdemeanor level, according to an open records request filed by The Durango Herald. Only four cases ever rose to the level of a felony, two of which were Chilcoat and Franklin.

In March 2012, a 19-year-old was accused of shooting a neighbor’s horse with a .22 caliber gun. The horse had to be put down because of its injuries.

The Deseret News reported the shooter, Cody Fors, entered a no-contest plea to one count of wanton destruction of livestock, which was reduced to a class A misdemeanor. If Fors paid $5,800 in restitution and incurred no new violations, the case would be dismissed.

No reason was ever given why Fors shot the horse, The Deseret News reported.

The other felony charge occurred in October 2013, after a father and a son near Cedar City took a neighbor’s horses and castrated them.

The Salt Lake Tribune reported Colby Hunt, 41, pleaded guilty to a reduced misdemeanor charge and was sentenced to a year probation, a $700 fine, a $1,500 payment for restitution to the neighbor and had to write a letter of apology.

His father, Marvin, 80, was found guilty in a jury trial. He was sentenced to 18 months probation, an $800 fine and $1,500 payment in restitution, as well as write a letter of apology.

The incident stemmed from a land dispute with their neighbor, Allen Baily. It appeared Baily’s horses were trying to mate with the Hunts’ horses, which started the feud.

Ronda Menlove is a former Republican member of the Utah House of Representatives who was the lead sponsor for enacting the destruction of livestock charge.

In an interview with The Herald, Menlove said the issue of people tampering with livestock hits home: some of her father’s cattle were stolen, a traumatic experience for the family that took a serious hit on their ranching operation.

Then, an incident while Menlove was in office, where people went into a field and injured livestock west of Salt Lake City, brought some attention and urgency to the issue.

“There’s a sensitivity in Utah because agriculture has been a main industry for years,” she said. “That’s why there was such broad support for (the law). Other people said, ‘Yeah, I’ve seen that happen in my community or have that happen on my farm and ranch.’”

Chilcoat and Franklin maintain they have never used violence or civil disobedience in all their years of environmental work. A poll of about 200 people in San Juan County found 75 percent knew of the Great Old Broads, and of that amount, 75 percent had a “very unfavorable” view of the group.

Chilcoat’s and Franklin’s defense attorneys have said Laws is under pressure from some people in San Juan County to take Chilcoat and Franklin down. Franklin’s trial is expected to take two days.

jromeo@durangoherald.com