A federal judge ruled Monday that the federal government may not retry Cliven Bundy and his sons after rebuking prosecutors for withholding evidence during their felony trial stemming from an armed standoff four years ago.
U.S. District Court Judge Gloria Navarro declared a mistrial in the case last month, saying federal prosecutors willfully withheld evidence that lawyers for the Bundys and alleged co-conspirator Ryan Payne should have had access to while mounting their defense.
She said the attorneys were in violation of the Brady rule, which requires prosecutors to disclose evidence that could be favorable to a defendant, and told them it wasn’t possible to proceed with the case.
On Monday, she dismissed the case “with prejudice,” meaning the government cannot retry the defendants. “The court finds that the universal sense of justice has been violated,”
In a just system, there’d be criminal penalties awaiting them.
The salt from the SPLC and other far leftists who openly wished for the Bundy Bunch saga to end like Tienanmen is going to be delicious…
But it’s a legal system, and in that it is something to be glad about, that the case was dismissed, and with prejudice. Hope somebody among those feds has the nuts to say it out loud to their colleagues, “Never mind whether they were really guilty, the point is we didn’t do our job right.”
The principle is old and entirely correct: Better a guilty man goes free than an innocent one be wrongly punished. (The really guilty almost always give the system another chance.)
this shyt happens a LOT. it’s only the deep pockets category and the exceptionally lucky category that dodge the bullet.
these prosecutors, er PERSECUTORS need their law licenses yanked and yes, heaved behind bars to really ‘make an example’ as the courts are so fond of applying.
The Guardian newspaper refers to this as a “stunning victory” … https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cliven_Bundy
and the next trial is….
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaVoy_Finicum
This whole persecution….. stunk from day one.
And now the murder of LaVoy Finicum will be dealt with.
To bad the branch davidians didn’t have such a fair minded judge.
The BLM has been trying to force ranchers from their lands, some of whom have had their families on the land for over 100 years. The Bundy family was the last ranch in their valley. Over 60 family ranches had previously been driven out. The BLM is a horror to western ranchers.
“In a just system, there’d be criminal penalties awaiting them.” Exactly. There is the key word “just”. This acquittal in this type of case is the exception. Too often we have a legal system but not a justice system. The more the government ties everything up in regulations and laws the more chance there is for this sort of miscarriage of justice.
Take our firearms laws for example. The laws are designed in such a way that a person can be charged for some infraction any time they wish.
Good for the Bundys.
I truly hope you’re right.
Patrick I saw that the video it was clear as day no cop had any right to shoot him as he never raised his gun or pointed it , but because he turned around in a snow bank with a loose jacket on they shot the crap outta him I think it was 7 rounds between 3 officers maybe I am way off but I thought I read that somewhere.
The ranchers , and piven were strong men and ultimately one paid the left got their pound of flesh ….so sad and what about the car getting shot to sh!t as well innocent unarmed people for half an hour were shot at ….all on video …..kids inside as well …..
“The BLM has been trying to force ranchers from their lands, some of whom have had their families on the land for over 100 years. The Bundy family was the last ranch in their valley. Over 60 family ranches had previously been driven out. The BLM is a horror to western ranchers.”
The BLM had snipers “up” on Americans.. Obama Admin corruption had no bounds.. Sick big eared mongrel and the Ninth Circuit were creating LAW… Rulings that created regulations for Harry Reid’s gangster land sales….Maybe Harry will lose another eye…
JMHO
All the crying, kvetching, moaning going on here. Tell me, what ecactly did you expect from government? Have any of you ever heard of a government that stopped grasping for more? Have any of you ever witnessed a government where corruption didn’t slowly grow over time?
But hey, we can all agree that having the government department of child protective services, could not possibly turn out like this. Public education, likewise, cannot possibly trend badly. They would never let an actual pedo design a grooming curriculum for a public school system.
You have the government you deserve. Your children have the government you deserve. Congratulations.
The BLM still manages the land…they didn’t win anything. Back where they started and Bundy still owes ’em a million dollars, or more, in fees.
Right or wrong, his whole protest amounts to nothing.
The BLM owns about 75 per cent of Nevada and over 60 per cent of Utah. They also own similar proportions of various parts of the neighbouring states. In northern Arizona, it’s mostly Navajo nation.
Then there are various quite large and sprawling national monuments. These are low-grade national parks, basically a lot of land that is even more inaccessible to economic lease than the ordinary BLM land. The Trump administration recently gouged back some of the land from two of these national monuments in Utah.
Whether that has given ranchers any better access or not, I am not sure, because they seemed to have some access in the one national monument that I have visited, so now perhaps it’s a better deal.
I am not sure if perhaps Nevada is a worse case than other states because of Harry Reid and his dabbling in political control. The inference was that Reid had kept economic lease seekers out of southern Nevada BLM lands so he could get his Chinese friends a sweet deal on being the ones to use the land (for various economic projects including solar power). So that may be why they were trying to drive the Bundy family off their land.
Absent this political interference, I suppose it gets down to being a dollars and cents issue for local ranchers, mining companies and communities in the west, based on how much they have to pay for access and how it compares to the economics of outright ownership. If the price is right, I suppose leasing government land might be better than owning it for some, but probably not in Clark County, Nevada.
Trump needs to pardon the minor participants who were convicted or pled guilty. It was am Obama fascist attack on the American people.
And give public lands outside the national parks to the states in the dozen or so western states. As goes the east, south, and midwest so should go the west. States outside the west manages public lands without SWAT teams and snipers. Free the western states.
There is a dilemma, in all of this situation.
Even so.
It is obvious that the rancher owed money to the government. It is also obvious that he thought, for some reason, that he was fully entitled to use the land for free as though it was his own, history of it nevertheless.
There is some element of a chance that the constitution allows for the resistance.
Its all a debatable on who is right and who is wrong and the percentages of it.
51% would carry it.
It is also good to see that the government lost to the “people” just for the hell of it.
Government being a swamp in need of shakeup.
What the Bundy’s did was civil disobedience.
He owed millions for pasturing desert. It was a government scam to get the ranchers off the land.
I’m not convinced of Bundy’s righteousness. Many ranchers make lease payments to graze public land. Bundy might be one of those ‘freeman’ types who believe government has no legitimacy. I don’t know enough about this case to comment.
I don’t support the government use of force.
Owning the water rights includes the right to use the forage the water will service…that’s the law in Nevada.
Regardless, Bundy will lose…