Secessionists, anti-government types and those who refuse to recognize the right of the federal government to administer or control huge swathes of land in the West and Southwest are celebrating an act of jury nullification.
On Thursday, an Oregon jury acquitted seven armed protesters who, using threats and intimidation, took over and occupied the Malheur Wildlife Refuge for 41 days last winter, impeding the work of federal workers. Six men and one woman were tried on conspiracy and firearm charges. Each could have been sentenced to six years in prison on the most serious charges if convicted.
No one, including their defense lawyers, expected the jury to find defendants who defied the authority of the government that put them on trial not guilty on all charges. Ironically, ringleader Ammon Bundy and his followers stood vindicated in the eyes of the court system they refuse to recognize as legitimate.
The reaction of their supporters was predictable jubilation. The assumption is that the anti-government sentiments the Bundys and their supporters stoked will increase on the far right, not decrease.
Mr. Bundy’s legal troubles are far from over, however. He and his brother, Ryan, and their father, the Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, still face federal charges in Nevada for which they must stand trial.
In 2014, the Bundys invited armed militias to stand with them in defiance of the government’s right to restrict where ranchers could graze their livestock on federal land in Nevada. The Bundys refused to recognize the authority of the Bureau of Land Management or its right to administer land.
The heavily armed men said they would fight to exercise their rights as sovereign citizens to graze wherever they wanted. The government blinked in that case, but later arrested Cliven Bundy when he traveled to Oregon to aid in his sons’ protest earlier this year.
One jury victory for anti-government protesters does not mean future cases will necessarily go their way. This absurd verdict in Oregon may stand as an outlier.
First Published: October 29, 2016, 4:00 a.m.
