A judge has affirmed the misdemeanor conviction of former 7th District Court Judge Sue Carol Browning.

The ruling issued Thursday by Special Judge John Grise found no basis to overturn Browning’s conviction on a count of second-degree criminal mischief.

Browning, 61, had been found guilty of the charge by a jury last year in Logan District Court.

The jury heard evidence that Browning, who served as a district court judge in Logan and Todd counties for 20 years before her retirement in 2015, punctured two tires on a pickup truck that was parked on her property.

The truck was one of several vehicles parked on Nov. 16, 2023, outside The Haven, a former church building that Browning owns and that is now zoned for residential use.

Jurors heard evidence that many vehicles parked there belonged to parents of Auburn Elementary School students, and that the drivers were at the school that day for a Thanksgiving luncheon.

At trial, Browning’s attorney, Stella House, argued that the three dozen or so drivers who parked their vehicles on The Haven property were trespassers who hampered Browning’s ability to access her property.

The jury recommended that Browning pay a $500 fine.

House did not return a message seeking comment.

Appeals of district court rulings are heard by a circuit judge, and Grise was assigned as a special judge to hear this appeal.

House claimed on appeal that Special Judge Gabe Pendleton, who presided over Browning’s trial, erroneously denied a motion to dismiss the case.

Prior to the trial, House argued that Browning was entitled to immunity from prosecution, claiming that the puncturing of the tires was justifiable physical force against a trespasser violating the law by being on Browning’s property without her permission.

The prosecution contended that there was probable cause that Browning used unlawful force and Pendleton agreed, denying the motion to dismiss.

On appeal, House argued that Browning acted to confine the vehicle’s owner by puncturing the tires.

Grise, however determined that no error had been committed by Pendleton when he denied a motion to dismiss the case and when he denied a jury instruction regarding the confinement issue.

Grise noted that the evidence showed that Browning punctured the tires of an unoccupied parked vehicle and had no contact with the vehicle’s owner, and that confining property – in this case the parked vehicle – does not equal confining a person with the intent to prevent continued trespassing.

“No evidence was presented that (Browning) confined the vehicle owner,” Grise stated in his ruling.

Grise also determined that Pendleton acted appropriately in denying House’s request to instruct the jury to consider whether Browning believed puncturing the tires was necessary to avoid an imminent injury greater than the trespassing she sought to prevent and that she had no alternative to avoid imminent injury except to puncture the tires.

Browning maintained that the roughly three dozen vehicles parked on her property and the owners walking across her property prevented her mother from accessing The Haven and prevented Browning from retrieving some things from the residence and leaving for a wedding in a timely manner, with that collective trespassing presenting a greater injury to her than puncturing two tires on the illegally parked vehicle.

“Here, (Browning) showed no imminent private injury necessitating the puncture of tires,” Grise’s ruling said. “Instead, as the trial court explained, at worst, (Browning) may have been inconvenienced by the vehicles being parked on her property for a couple of hours and that she may have needed to call a tow truck to have the vehicles removed, but that her decision to damage property was not due to a lack of reasonable, viable alternatives to prevent a greater harm from occurring.”

Grise found that Browning did not produce evidence to support her “choosing the commission of an otherwise unlawful act over other lawful means of protecting her property from trespass.”

House appealed Pendleton’s decision to deny a motion for a directed verdict in Browning’s favor.

House argued at the time that the prosecution did not establish at trial that the truck’s owner suffered a loss of $500 or more because of his damaged tires, a monetary threshold to support a second-degree criminal mischief charge at the time.

House contended that, based on the original cost of the tires, the loss amounted to $260, while the victim testified that he found replacement tires for $620.

The driver also testified that he had to act that day to find replacement tires because of work obligations.

Grise determined that this was “competent evidence” for a jury to consider when determining whether Browning caused a loss of $500 or more.