Amid Myriad Abuses, Federal Government Subjecting Cliven Bundy, Other Defendants to Protracted Detention in Land Rights Trial

June 25th, 2017

Awake Goy

By The TRUTH HOUND
Stop the Presses News & Commentary

LAS VEGAS, Nev.—Federal prosecutors are so determined to demonize and permanently cast into the dungeon Cliven Bundy and 16 of the other men who supported him during an April 12, 2014 encounter with federal land agents near his southern Nevada ranch, that re-trying four of the men from the first of three planned trials is only one thing on growing list of federal maneuvers and abuses that make a mockery of a fair, impartial and speedy trial.

Just for starters, presiding Judge Gloria Navarro of the Federal District Court in Las Vegas, as of this writing, is considering continuing the practice of having the defendants shackled in the courtroom.

In the first trial, five of the six defendants were shackled at the ankle, evidently away from the jury’s view, according to what author and legal expert Roger Roots observed after attending this entire trial so far. Only pro se defendant Todd Engel, representing himself, was allowed to walk freely in court, though the public in attendance could see that the others were shackled, Roots added.

However, Roots noted that a federal Ninth Circuit ruling just came down, saying that defendants should never be shackled in the courtroom unless there’s a highly compelling reason to do so. And there’s no reason to believe any of the Bundy trial’s defendants are violent, let alone violent enough to justify shackles.

RETRIAL MOVED, SENTENCING SLATED

Yet, the retrial of the above-referenced four defendants—O. Scott Drexler, Eric Parker, Richard Lovelien and Steven Stewart—won’t begin until 8:30 a.m. Monday, July 10, starting with jury selection. The date had been June 26. Judge Navarro approved the delay, which, this time, was sought by the defendants while the prosecution opposed it.

The retrial was sought by the federal government after the first trial (which began Feb. 6) ended in a partial mistrial on April 24, because the jury after lengthy deliberations could not reach a verdict for those four defendants.

But the two others from the first trial, Todd Engel, 49, of Idaho and Gregory Burleson, 53, of Arizona—as revealed during testimony, Burleson was, at one time, a paid government informant—each received convictions. According to the Las Vegas courthouse docket, those two defendants will be sentenced July 26-27.

Engel, convicted of obstruction of justice and interstate commerce to aid extortion, might get 2-4 years in prison, though he may get credit for time already served.

But since Burleson was convicted of more serious things like assault on a federal officer and on several gun counts—including three counts of using a firearm in a crime of violence—he faces a blunt mandatory minimum of 57 years. And since he was found guilty of lesser charges like obstructing justice, he could face even more time.

PAID INFORMANT AT STANDOFF?

It turns out that initial reports that Burleson was a paid informant—at the time of the April 2014 standoff at least—haven’t been totally proven.

“The government denies that, at that time, he was still a paid informant, saying instead that he was [a paid informant] sometime in the past in Arizona, in a murder case,” Roots understands, adding that the government needs to further clarify this matter. “There are more questions than answers. I believe they burned him.”

Since Burleson was the one who made “scary” Facebook statements in the lead-up to the standoff, allegedly verbally threatening federal agents, and because the other defendants didn’t make any such statements, Roots surmises that Burleson was the government’s “poison apple” who failed to tarnish the other defendants by association—hence the government hammering him.

Meanwhile, all 17 defendants in this pivotal, high-profile case—which is ultimately about the U.S. government’s top-down gross mismanagement of federal lands in the American West—are still in a federal lockup while their assorted motions to secure their pre-trial release or dismiss the case altogether have been steadfastly denied. Moreover, large bodies of evidence to support the defense have been deemed inadmissible.

Furthermore, whenever any of these imprisoned defendants are moved, they’ve reportedly endured frequent body-cavity searches. A lawsuit addressing this issue, filed by defendant Ryan Bundy, one of Cliven’s sons, is still pending. And in one of the most recent developments, a unified motion was filed by the defendants in the second and third trials, seeking a pretrial release through Public Defender’s office on due-process grounds.

Many of the defendants’ motions pertain to indefinite attention without trial. Breaching that principle (habeas corpus) nullifies the constitutional guarantee of a fair and speedy trial. Some of the defendants have been locked up since early March 2016; others, longer than that.

The defense maintains that the actions of these men in the April 2014 “standoff” with armed Bureau of Land Management (BLM) agents and contractors were simply an exercise of their First (and Second) Amendment rights, but only in protest of federal land policies and not a “conspiracy” to threaten or harm federal agents, as the prosecution maintains.

At the standoff—during which no shots were fired by either side—Cliven and his backers, many of whom openly carried firearms, protested and successfully resisted the BLM’s attempt to seize hundreds of Cliven’s cattle over the government’s claim that Cliven has long refused to pay grazing fees on public lands, though Bundy, citing the Bunkerville region’s formation and history, takes issue with federal jurisdiction in Clark County, Nevada to begin with.

CLIVEN’S TRIAL—FALL OR LATER

Moving the retrial to July 10, another in a string of schedule changes that have hampered the ability of non-local media to cover the trial firsthand, also means that the long-anticipated second trial involving Cliven, two of his sons, Ammon and Ryan, and Ryan Payne and internet radio host Pete Santilli, is delayed indefinitely and will not happen until the fall or later.

The third and final trial, therefore, may not even happen during 2017, concerning defendants Mel and Dave Bundy (also Cliven’s sons), as well as Brian Cavalier, Jason Woods, Micah McGuire and Joseph O’Shaughnessy.

The defendants in the long-delayed second trial, with the exception of Cliven who was arrested separately for his role in the standoff near Bunkerville, are among those who previously stood trial in federal court in Portland, Ore., stemming from an early-2016 occupation-protest, also over federal land policies.

Ammon and Ryan Bundy, Mr. Payne and Mr. Santilli were cleared of all charges from their involvement in that occupation of a vacated federal wildlife refuge facility in Harney County, Oregon. But upon being cleared, they were never released from prison by a government that seems ultra-desperate to find a winning strategy in a case for which its prosecution basis is eroding.

Roots noted that the government even went so far as newly filing a broad motion, asking the judge to allow evidence in the re-trial that a couple of the defendants, Mr. Drexler and Mr. Parker, joined the “Three-Percent of Idaho,” which the government defines as a “militia.” But Andrea Parker, wife of 33-year-old Eric Parker, told The TRUTH HOUND that while Eric joined the loose-knit group only after April of 2014 and briefly served as its vice president, he’s no longer involved with it.

So, she finds it odd that discussion of the Idaho group was excluded in the first trial but now, via this new motion, prosecutors are asking the judge to allow it.

Furthermore, that motion, in yet another indication of the government’s desperation, seeks to stop the defendants from presenting any evidence concerning the behavior of federal agents in the days leading up to the standoff, while also asking the judge to disallow those being retried from stating their philosophical reasons for taking part in resisting the BLM.

Such evidence could prove to the jury that federal snipers stationed on nearby hills threatened both the defendants and non-defendants. Brianna Bundy, Cliven’s daughter-in-law, recalled federal agents menacingly training their rifle-laser sights on, or near, innocent bystanders, including children, before the standoff, among other documented bizarre behavior by federal agents.

“They don’t want any discussion of these things,” Roots said.

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