Carol Bundy, in an interview with The Republic, said her husband,
sons and others are really being tried for making federal authorities
look bad and forcing them to back down in the face of a citizen
uprising.
PHOENIX — A federal jury in Las Vegas did not return any guilty verdicts Tuesday against four men accused of conspiracy and weapons charges for their roles in the 2014 Bundy Ranch standoff.
Jurors
returned not guilty verdicts on some counts and deadlocked on others
after four days of deliberation, delivering a second surprising defeat
to federal prosecutors in the case.
Jurors notified
U.S. District Court Judge Gloria Navarro on Tuesday that they had
reached an impasse on several counts, and the defendants were called
into court at 2 p.m. when the verdicts were returned.
Richard
Lovelien of Oklahoma and Eric Parker, Steven Stewart and O. Scott
Drexler, all of Idaho, were being retried on conspiracy, extortion,
assault and obstruction charges for helping Cliven Bundy fend off a
government roundup of his cattle in what became known as the Battle of
Bunkerville.
A jury in April deadlocked on charges
against the four men. It convicted two other defendants on multiple
counts. But the jury could not agree on conspiracy charges — a key
component of the government's case — against any of the six.
The
government launched its second prosecution last month. The case ended
dramatically last week, when defense attorneys waived closing arguments
as part of a protest about court proceedings and legal rulings they said
prevented them from offering a proper defense.
The
Bundy Ranch standoff is one of the most high-profile land-use cases in
modern Western history, pitting cattle ranchers, anti-government
protesters and militia members against the Bureau of Land Management.
For
decades, the BLM repeatedly ordered Bundy to remove his cattle from
federal lands and in 2014 obtained a court order to seize his cattle as
payment for more than $1 million in unpaid grazing fees.
Hundreds
of supporters from every state in the union, including members of
several militia groups, converged on his ranch about 70 miles north of
Las Vegas.
Navarro's rulings, aimed at trying to
avoid jury nullification, severely limited defense arguments. Jury
nullification occurs when a jury returns a verdict based on its shared
belief rather than on the evidence in a case.
Navarro
barred defendants from discussing why they traveled thousands of miles
to join protesters at the Bundy Ranch. She did not allow them to testify
about perceived abuses by federal authorities during the cattle roundup
that might have motivated them to participate.
Navarro
also restricted defendants from raising constitutional arguments, or
mounting any defense based on their First Amendment rights to free
speech and their Second Amendment rights to bear arms. In her rulings,
Navarro said those were not applicable arguments in the case.
Federal
officials did not face the same restrictions. To show defendants were
part of a conspiracy, they referenced events that happened months, or
years, after the standoff.
Three trials are
scheduled for 17 defendants who are being prosecuted based on their
alleged levels of culpability in the standoff.
Although defendants in the first trial and the retrial were considered the least culpable, all face the same charges.
Those convicted could spend the rest of their lives in prison.
The second trial will include Cliven Bundy and his sons, Ammon and Ryan Bundy, who are considered ringleaders.
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The Blogger
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