{"id":52301,"date":"2020-08-07T10:03:02","date_gmt":"2020-08-07T16:03:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/u-s-appeals-court-denies-bid-to-resurrect-bundy-standoff-case\/"},"modified":"2020-08-07T16:03:02","modified_gmt":"2020-08-07T16:03:02","slug":"u-s-appeals-court-denies-bid-to-resurrect-bundy-standoff-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/u-s-appeals-court-denies-bid-to-resurrect-bundy-standoff-case\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. appeals court denies bid to resurrect Bundy standoff case"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"In
In this file photo from Jan. 10, 2018, Cliven Bundy talks to reporters outside Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Headquarters in Las Vegas. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal in San Francisco on Aug. 6 denied prosecutors\u2019 efforts to overturn U.S. District Judge Gloria Navarro\u2019s decision to stop a monthslong trial in January 2018 due to prosecutorial misconduct and her order dismissing the case so it could not be refiled.<\/span>L.E. Baskow\/Las Vegas Sun<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

LAS VEGAS \u2014 A U.S. appeals court refused Thursday to resurrect the criminal case against states\u2019 rights figure Cliven Bundy, family members and others stemming from a 2014 armed standoff with federal agents trying to round up Bundy cattle near the family ranch in Nevada.<\/p>\n

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal in San Francisco denied prosecutors\u2019 efforts to overturn U.S. District Judge Gloria Navarro\u2019s decision to stop a monthslong trial in January 2018 for \u201cflagrant\u201d prosecutorial misconduct and her dismissal of the criminal indictment so it could not be refiled.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe judgment is affirmed,\u201d Judge Jay Bybee wrote for the three-judge panel that heard oral arguments May 29. The judges found Navarro properly identified violations of \u201crecognized statutory or constitutional\u201d rights, and she had the authority to punish the government \u201cto deter future illegal conduct.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bundy, his sons Ryan and Ammon Bundy, and Montana militia leader Ryan Payne had faced life in prison. But they were set free after nearly two years of detention ahead of trial on charges including conspiracy and assaulting federal officers.<\/p>\n

Their arrests, with a total of 19 co-defendants in the Nevada case, came in early 2016 after the Bundy brothers and Payne took part in a 41-day anti-government protest occupation at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon.<\/p>\n

The Nevada case stemmed from a years-long dispute between Bundy and the federal Bureau of Land Management over years of unpaid grazing fees. It grew to involve self-described personal militia members from 11 other states who answered a Bundy family plea for help in March 2014. It became a symbol for advocates of states\u2019 rights, anti-federal policies and the sovereign citizen movement.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey still say I\u2019m trespassing,\u201d Bundy, 74, said Thursday. He maintains the federal government has no authority and U.S. courts have no jurisdiction over state lands. He acknowledged he continues to refuse to pay fees for his cows grazing in the scrub desert of what is now Gold Butte National Monument.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese feds came in here and overreached on my land and my ranch,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re willing to go through what we\u2019ve had to to defend our rights and the constitution and freedom. I have no contract with the federal government.\u201d<\/p>\n

U.S. Attorney Nicholas Trutanich in Las Vegas said he respected the decision; noted the appeals court called it \u201ca difficult and trying case;\u201d and pointed to a footnote in which the appeals court judges said \u201cmisjudgments\u201d by prosecutors did not rise to professional misconduct.<\/p>\n

The judges said they found \u201ca serious constitutional violation based on choices made by the government.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ammon Bundy\u2019s attorney, Daniel Hill, dubbed the ruling \u201cthe Republic in action.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have courts so that someone can tell the government when it\u2019s done wrong. Judge Navarro\u2019s order dismissing the case was righteous, and the 9th Circuit agreed,\u201d Hill said.<\/p>\n

Navarro found \u201cdeliberate attempts\u201d by the FBI and prosecutors \u201cto mislead and distort the truth.\u201d She blamed FBI agents for \u201creckless disregard\u201d of requirements to turn over evidence relating to government snipers and cameras that monitored the Bundy homestead.<\/p>\n

The appeals court said pre-standoff \u201cthreat assessment\u201d reports prepared by government agents should have been turned over from the FBI to federal prosecutors to defense attorneys.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese documents could have helped bolster the defense\u2019s claim that the government had engaged in an overmilitarized impound operation that the Bundys claim fueled their fears of being surrounded by snipers,\u201d the court said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomeone in the government made a conscious choice to withhold these documents. It may not have been a malicious choice, but it also was not a matter of simple oversight.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cliven Bundy\u2019s attorney, conservative activist Larry Klayman, said evidence showed government agents \u201cthreatened the Bundys\u2019 lives, killed their cattle, assaulted family members and perpetrated tyrannical executive power over them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prosecutors failed to gain full convictions in two earlier trials against six other defendants who acknowledged carrying assault-style weapons during the April 2014 confrontation outside Bunkerville, 80 miles (129 kilometers) northeast of Las Vegas.<\/p>\n

None was found guilty of a key conspiracy charge.<\/p>\n

Navarro separately dismissed charges against four remaining co-defendants who had been awaiting trial later in 2018.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Prosecutors claim judge wrongly dismissed indictment<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":52302,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,121],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-52301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-utah"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52301"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52301\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52301"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=52301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}