Federal Jurisdiction?

 I have recently been asked to give a professional opinion on whether the public roads inside the National Park on St. John VI are subject to the jurisdiction of the federal park rangers / federal law enforcement officers.
  The roads existed before there was a park, the land they ran through was privately owned and there was a Public Road ROW, originally due to long-term use by the public creating a prescriptive easement. In many cases these tracks existed before the islands were purchased by the USA, under Danish rule. A few years after the VI National Park was established the Park took over maintenance of the particular road in question. There was no specific transfer of ownership or title, just an agreement to grade, pave, etc. Nor was there ever a formal legal transfer of jurisdiction, in whatever manner that might be done. The VI police definitely still have their own jurisdiction for whatever that's worth.
  In the last year or two the Park law enforcement has gotten much more ambitious (post 9/11 all 'security' seems more over-the-top) and many of the tickets have been questionable. That's why it's important to know if they even have the authority to give tickets. After all these roads are VI public roads, and were VI public roads before the Park was established.
  It's my gut feeling that they don't have jurisdiction, but that by itself isn't worth much. What do you all think? (Legal references would be very welcome.)
  Meanwhile I'll go back to looking through my Survey Law books. Legal jargon gives me a headache, though.
         

Mr. Gibney, as you well know the Virgin Islands is a U.S. Territory. In the United States proper there is no such thing as a prescriptive easement against the federal government. The creation of the Virgin Islands National Park was done by charter and the details published in the Federal Register. The authority for the enforcement of trafiic and other laws within the boundaries of VINP is not related to land survey laws in Title 43 USC.

Law enforcement responsiblilities are set as exclusive, concurrent or proprietary. What the former status of a road inside a federal boundary was does not preclude the NPS from enforcing traffic laws. Their jurisdiction rarely if ever spills over to adjacent properties. Jurisdiction for traffic enforcement is sometimes left to the discretion of the local jurisdiction when the federal road passes through private properties such as the case on St. John. Or the local authorities can defer to federal agencies. There is no "one" answer to this question because it tends to vary by state and region.

The NPS areas which have clearly defined boundaries are almost always exclusively under federal control. When the Park is dotted with private inholdings, sometimes not so much.

The feds can be somewhat anal about exclusive jurisdiction. Take the case of "immigration reform" for example. They are not too happy with new laws in Alabama and Arizona.

VI law is a bit unclear about those responsibilities. I spent the summer of 1989 trying to sort out some right of way issues on the roads on St. John and things never seemed all that clear. That said, in the absence of clarity the feds are pretty notorious for expanding their authority whenever they can. To find the answer you will need to locate the documents that created the Park. Then you will need to find out if the VI authorities have entered into any specific agreements with NPS. Good luck searching records on St. Thomas. I found them rather sparse. As a local you might have better luck

MLB

"The roads existed before there was a park, the land they ran through was privately owned and there was a Public Road ROW, originally due to long-term use by the public creating a prescriptive easement. In many cases these tracks existed before the islands were purchased by the USA, under Danish rule."

One must first assume that with the bulk acquisition of the park land the Federal Government acquired the underlying fee title to the land beneath the public right of way. Since the feds are not restricting acess they are free to otherwise exercise their Sovereign powers.

Where the road passes through privately held land, the private land owner has the fee title to the right of way, which may give the private landowner some unregulated rights. So push those unregulated rights and the Feds may exercise eminent domain over your  fee and then may even block your access. I do not see what could possibly be won.

Paul in PA

Paul, Virgin Islands NP is one of two major parks largely created by donations from the Rockefeller Family. The other park is Grand Teton. The Rockefellers are not the only wealthy people who used their influence to lobby for the creation of national parks and monuments. There are others. And in most of these cases not all of the local residents were in favor of supporting these philanthropic gestures. In many cases the donors retained certain exclusive rights. And no, these rights were not always (if ever) extended to neighbors who typically found themselves subject to condemnation procedures.

This makes things confusing enough when this occurs in the forty-eight, somewhat less in Alaska and somewhat more in Hawaii. But territories are more confusing yet. The U.S. got the Virgin Islands from Denmark in 1916. They are classified as "an unincorporated territory of the United States". Most of the property boundaries were delineated under the "Danish System". The NPS has tried to maintain the integrity of those delineations to the degree possible, but as I stated earlier, records leave a lot to be desired.

Most significantly, the U.S. classifies the Virgin Islands as "non self-governing". The cities and towns are locally governed, but the federal government maintains a significant presence. The Park Service is not the only Federal Agency involved. As far as the feds deferring control, Congress has yet to approve a separate Constitution for the VI. So, federal agencies have de facto control of law enforcement activities at their discretion.

That has very little if anything to do with survey law.
http://www.nps.gov/viis/parkmgmt/lawsandpolicies.htm

MLB

In working on cadastral mapping on St. John it turns out that the roads were always excluded from the conveyance.

An Estate might dedescribed as having 353 less 8 acres of public road, or it is described as going to the right-of-way.

If the Feds never got title how can they claim the road?