Armed militia, Bundy brothers take over federal Wildlife Refuge building in Oregon

Parent Cafe
501

“necessary discussions that we need to have in this country regarding racism, sexism, etc. Those who choose to see “isms” and read intent into every single situation they don’t agree with”

Let me get this straight. You think those “ism” discussions are important, but when we start one about an example of undisputed lawlessness, we’re accused of doing this in “every single situation we don’t agree with.”

“what would have happened if the defendants were fill-in-the-blank…that’s the kind of crap that causes more harm than good”

Can you help us understand how people can discuss racism without looking at how reversing the races would change the situation? Emmett Till wouldn’t have been lynched for (allegedly) whistling at a white girl if he’d been white. That’s how we know it was racism. How am I doing more harm than good by pointing that out? How in the world do those necessary “ism” conversations happen, then?

502

@novadad99:
From the lawyers in my family (something I am definitely not), including a couple of ex prosecutors, from what I understand about jury misconduct it is difficult to prove. One way, obviously, would be if jurors were gotten to and bribed for their vote a certain way (which doesn’t seem to be the case here). Another would be if some members of the jury used intimidation tactics (like threatening other jurors, or a foreman threatening to keep them there for a long time if they didn’t vote a certain way (basically refusing to get a hung jury declared by not allowing it to go to the judge, at least if I understand it correctly), it could also be a group of jurors banding together and refusing to deliberate at all, not even willing to hear out the other people (not sure what the standard is with that one). From what I know, other than the bribery, someone on the jury would have to complain about being intimidated or coerced for juror misconduct to be proven…but again, that is only what i know, some of the lawyers on here might be able to clarify it:)

503

“necessary discussions that we need to have in this country regarding racism, sexism, etc. Those who choose to see “isms” and read intent into every single situation they don’t agree with” Funny, when the OJ Simpson verdict came down a ton of people were enraged and argued that this was jury nullification, that the jury acquitted him because he was black, that they were blinded by race and didn’t even listen to the facts, etc (for the record, I thought that verdict was a travesty, I also think the prosecution and the cops were amateurs and that didn’t help).

Given similar situations in the past, like Wounded Knee and the Alcatraz sit in, and the kind of bias we see openly expressed towards Muslims, it doesn’t take a genius to assume that if a bunch of armed people who weren’t white ranchers from a rural area claiming to be ‘fighting government incursion’, that if a group of native americans or muslims did such a thing, especially when armed, the same Jury would likely throw the book at them, and probably saying they wish they could have found them guilty of a lot more, like terrorism. What these clowns did was an act of terrorism, they forcibly took over a piece of federal land (their claim to own it was utter BS), this was not a peaceful protest (you don’t bring semi automatic weapons to a peaceful protest, or any weapons), and the fact that they were charged with something like hindering federal workers says volumes, the government probably figured, even those these guys did not have a leg to stand on, that if they tried harsher penalties no jury would convict them.

This was juror nullifcation and yes, it is racism, in the sense that the jury voted not to convict, despite the ton of evidence that this was an armed takeover of federal land, because those doing it were ‘just folks like them’, and while there is no way absolutely to know how they would vote if the perps were non white, if this was the black panthers, a muslim group or more importantly, native americans, where we do have a track record when something like this happened, an no odds maker would take the side of acquittal if they were non white.

For a country that prides itself on being a nation of laws, something like this is scary, this is people turning their back on facts and laws and deciding to make law themselves, given the evidence against the accused here, how this was played out in public, there was no question of guilt, and what they did was basically sanction lawlessness, pure and simple.

504

BTW, if you want proof of the different standard, take a look at what is happening in North Dakota, http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/29/opinion/why-dakota-is-the-new-keystone.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region&region=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region

Protestors (who aren’t armed, btw) are being arrested for protesting, the cops are using dogs against them, reporters are being threatened with arrest for taking pictures and video…so a bunch of white, armed people take over a federal reserve claiming it is ‘theirs’, but native americans protest an oil pipeline that will cut across their land (land granted to them by treaty in the last century) are being arrested? Anyone wanna bet the jury in this case would throw the book at the people protesting the pipeline?

505

The only way I can make any sense of this verdict is to look at the Judge’s instructions to the jury before they began deliberations. They were detailed, somewhat convoluted and 30 pages long.

Bundy and six co-defendants were charged with conspiring to impede Bureau of Land Management employees from doing their work at the Wildlife Refuge during the occupation. There were also weapons charges.

I read those instructions as requiring the jury to find that all the defendants became a member of an alleged conspiracy knowing that the objective was to prevent Land Management employees from discharging their duties. The defense argued strenuously that the objective of the occupation was to protest the federal government’s control of the land and to get them to turn management over to state or local authorities. The jury obviously bought into that theory and concluded that the objective was never to prevent Land Management employees from doing their work – although that was obviously a consequence of the occupation.

There was a further jury instruction that stated that if they could not convict on the conspiracy charge then they could not convict on the weapons charge. I assume that instruction was grounded in the right to bear arms.

So if it was an inherently biased jury the instructions allowed them a path to acquittal. Or the jury simply believed the objective of the occupation was indeed a protest against government control of the land and they had no other choice but to acquit under the instructions given.

Not sure if jury members are allowed to speak about their deliberations but if they are then some light will be shed on how they arrived at the acquittal.

506

Jury shenanigans:

http://www.oregonlive.com/oregon-standoff/2016/10/baker_city_man_bounced_from_or.html#incart_maj-story-1

507

Music print I will bet you nobody in ND will go to jail, and probably not even trial.

p.s. post 502 is a lot of stereotyping,hyperbole and anecdotes. and you said a bunch of stuff that is over the top. a lot of people of the same mindset on CC may give you a thumbs up, but it does not make it reality.

508

When I think it can’t get worse. Here is more from Juror #4.

http://www.oregonlive.com/oregon-standoff/2016/10/juror_4_prosecutors_in_oregon.html

Juror #4 is a college student, clearly going for a B.S. in BS. Once he got rid of the lone voice of reason (juror #11), he was free to triumphalismize a 12 person agreement. :frowning:

509

Just to clarify it was never the Bundy’s position that the land should be theirs. They were protesting the federal governments management and control of the land and want it turned over to the state for administration so “the people” can benefit from it rather than the government.

510

Just more proof that there are a lot of dumb people in this country.

511

I don’t see racism when a white jury acquits a group of white defendents, when if some of co-defendents had been black they would surely have been acquitted too.

512

These are representative enough, though not singled out from the many.

The jury seems to have been about as perfect as they ever are… that they even arrived at a verdict means it wasn’t a complete waste of time and money. Probably weren’t swayed to any greater degree by the lawyers than in any other trial, even though it’s a time honored belief that the legal counsel you can afford has almost everything to do with the justice you receive.

What the world’s coming to, when you can’t trust a jury to do the thing you want done? A bench trial might have gotten the desired result but maybe not:

Jury trial, bench trials, etc… evidently justice can’t be served with either, unless it’s the justice desired.

And a nice touch on the part of Mosby, to say Judge Williams’ conclusions as to the merits of her first three cases amounted to prejudicial ‘opinion’, btw.

513

""Inference, while possibly compelling, proved to be insulting or inadequate to 12 diversely situated people as a means to convict,’’ the juror wrote.

If you want to know what bad college essays sound like, this is exhibit A.

514

^^^ really, it’s almost as bad as “triumphalism”.

515

HarvestMoon: Am I mistaken that the Bundys are claiming the government land, on which they have been grazing their cattle without paying, as their own based on ancestral claims?

516

My understanding is that Bundy’s contention is that the land belongs to the “sovereign state of Nevada.” He claimed ancestral right to graze his cattle without paying fees to the federal government. However a court ruled against him on that claim in 1998. If he wants to graze he has to pay and pay to the feds not the state of Nevada.

To my knowledge he has never claimed that the land itself belongs to him or his family.

517

@harvestmoon1:
What this is about is as old as the hills, literally, and it is a battle that goes back into the 19th century, and it is about grazing rights. In the 19th century there literally were wars over grazing land and water in the west, armed conflicts that the US military (Douglas MacArthur’s father for one) spent probably more time fighting then they did fighting the native americans they were pushing unto reservations.

What Bundy et al are upset about is having to pay grazing fees.In the west, there is a lot of federal land (that I believe came under the control of the federal government in part because of the ‘grazing wars’ on the late 19th century), and under federal law people using federal land (grazers, mineral rights, oil) have to pay for the use of that land. The whole thing about ‘state sovereignty’ has little to do with it, what Bundy et al hope is that if the state took over the land, they could use it without paying. Federal grazing fees and things like mineral and oil rights are very, very small, but what Bundy and the other ranchers want is the right to graze for free (if the federal government made grazing free, you wouldn’t have these protests, I guarantee you that). Put it this way, if this was private land, Bundy and the rest of his rabble would be paying a lot more, the low cost of mineral, oil (if anyone ever asks you about subsidies given to oil companies, ask about what little they have to pay to drill on federal land) and grazing rights is a form of federal subsidy, part of the ‘benefits’ that of course Bundy et al don’t receive. They want the state to take it over so they could get it for free, in other words (what in my parts we call welfare, out there they call ‘their rights’).

@zobroward:
It wasn’t hyperbole, the examples I mentioned are very real, of past occupations by native americans and what happened to them, when similar protests happened involving native Americans they paid a heavy price. When groups like the black panthers occupied buildings and such in protest, armed like the bundies were, they were sent away for many years, if not killed (and no, I am not defending the black panthers, just making comparisons). The fact that these were white ranchers was significant, the racism was that if they had been anything but ‘salt of the earth types’ in the jurors eyes, they likely would have not gotten off (someone said in a comment I read in a paper, that if any of the protesters were black, they would have gotten off, too…kind of a stupid argument, because a jury couldn’t find the black members guilty and the white members not guilty when the charges were conspiracy, which is an all or nothing thing, conspiracy by its nature is all or nothing).

Having read the judges summary to the jury, I also wonder how the judges charge influenced things (and one of the lawyers on here could comment on that), speaking totally as a non lawyer reading the charge to the jury it almost sounds to me like the judge narrowed it down to that to convict, that the jury had to believe the conspiracy was to disrupt the work of the BLM employees, that they couldn’t consider the conspiracy was to take over the preserve and the consequences of that conspiracy was to impede BLM employees,if I read that right then that might raise questions about the judge and their own biases. Having been on juries, though, I can tell you that the judges instructions aren’t necessarily that well listened to by juries, and based in that I find it hard to lay this on the judge’s instructions, I suspect based on my own experiences that it was more like the judges instructions gave them latitude to find the way they were heading in the first place.

I also wonder if the AG office might be looking at the conduct of the judge in removing the juror in this case. If in fact the juror in question happened to be one of those who were arguing the bundy’s were guilty, the reason for removing that juror is going to come under question IMO, the judge may have to justify removing the juror and have a good reason, because the way I read about the juror being removed, it sounded like a pro acquittal juror basically said the pro conviction guy was arguing too much or something. If they found the removed juror was unwilling to deliberate or talk about his reason for wanting to convict, that is one thing, but if it was because the judge themself had an agenda, then there could be a problem (among other things, did that judge ever see the movie “12 Angry Men” about the role of a dissenting juror).

518

@catahoula:

“What the world’s coming to, when you can’t trust a jury to do the thing you want done? A bench trial might have gotten the desired result but maybe not”

A bench trial can only be requested by the defense, in a case like this the prosecutor cannot ask for a bench trial, it is a right reserved for defendents to choose a jury of their peers or a judge. In this case, based on the judge’s charge, it sounds to me like had they gone the bench route, they likely would have gotten off, too, because the charge was so narrow.

No one is calling for the jury to be executed or shot or getting rid of trial by jury, people are simply exercising their right to criticize the verdict, and a lot of people are, both lay and legal. Juries can and do make stupid decisions, along with wise ones, people have been convicted of crimes and executed when they didn’t do it, the OJ Simpson jury let him go, juries have awarded millions of dollars to a woman who put away a bottle a day of Jack Daniels while pregnant and sued because her baby had fetal alcohol syndrome (claiming that the Jack Daniels people didn’t have a warning label about drinking and pregnancy, despite the fact a)drinking and pregnancy and its effects were well known and b)there was no law governing it at the time), because the jury sympathized with her (it was overturned on appeal), happens all the time. That doesn’t mean the jury can’t be criticized for its actions and their consequences, the consequences of this court decision is it can embolden the anti government/Patriot types into pulling off similar stunts, assuming that juries will be sympathetic to them, much the same way in certain areas drug dealers and other criminals operate openly, knowing people are too scared of them (or hate the cops, take your pick) to rat them out.

There is plenty of criticism here, why the prosecutors used conspiracy charges I don’t know, and why it was impeding BLM employees, rather than for an armed takeover of federal land or similar charges, I don’t know (they could have been brought up on terrorism charges, if they were unarmed that would be difficult, but brandishing weapons the way they did can be looked at as intimidation). I don’t know why the judge gave the charge she did, either, so there may be criticism there. Few cases of juror incompetence (or seeming incompetence) can be laid at the jury alone, the law itself can be fouled up and the jurors are often left to their own devices when it comes to sorting through what happened, judges charges can be directed a certain way, and of course prosecutors, as we saw with the OJ trial, can be second rate, too.

On the other hand, seeing the Bundys and their supporters as ‘victims’ of ‘government overreach’ is a stretch, and I suspect the jurors had that in mind, too, when they acquitted them, if this trial had been moved elsewhere (which I am surprised the prosecution didn’t ask for), I suspect the jury verdict with the same charges, the same judge, would have been different. The Bundys aren’t victims, they and their supporters are looking for a free ride, if the state took over the lands you can bet that the state would make grazing free and also would be a lot more liberal about how much grazing they could do there.

519

music print at the original assault on protesters in nevada by federal agents …the government used dogs and beat them. an attack dog was even used by the feds to assault a pregnant women. . in orgeon a protester who had no weapon in his hand was shot in the back and killed, (just like the cops do in the cases that you probably got upset about no charges against the police) several fbi agents were caught lying and were being “investigated”
so you seem to pick and choose how you filter things based on your personal opinion which is your choice. but when federal agents unleash dogs on pregnant women or a joint state / fbi harassment leads to a man being shot in the back and killed … they are hardly being treated fairly and their civil rights are being violated. either you are all in for civil rights or you just clamor about it when it fits your personal views. which is it?

I personally have no feeling of love for the bundy protesters. but to overlook the illegal(never punished) civil rights violations against their supporters is a hard pill to swallow to say the least.

and you seem over obsessed with race, tons of white people are in jail sent there by white juries or white judges (even some who are innocent) and tons of black people who are guilty walk because of black juries. if you want to say the jury saw the victimization of these people and supported their cause …I could see that…but the fact they were white, therefore they let them off is so over the top.
let me ask you…so white people always take race into account and every other group of people in a jury just look at the facts…?? my gosh that is absurd.

520

@zobroward:
I didn’t say that, there have been plenty of all black juries guilty of jury nullification, too, you miss the point, that jury nullification based on anything but the facts of the case is wrong, and I am tired of people when you talk about racism and bias complaining “how come only white people are biased or racist or whatnot”, they aren’t, and the OJ Simpson case is a pretty good example IMO where a Jury went into that jury room ready to acquit him, or at least most of the jurors did.

As far as your citings, the guy who was killed in the Oregon occupation was armed and he openly said he wouldn’t be taken alive, he wasn’t shot in the back and he wasn’t unarmed, where you got that from I don’t know,when he was captured there were reporters and cameras there, so the ‘facts’ you just gave don’t fit it. As far as dogs being used on other protestors, see if you can find a legitimate news citing where white protestors had dogs used against them in the nevada protests, where a pregnant woman was beaten, that sounds more like claims on right wing talk radio and bloviators like Rush Limbaugh than fact. And comparing the oregon (or the nevada) protestors to the ones in North Dakota are not comparing the same thing, both the oregon situation and the one in Nevada (the one with the Bundy’s, once again) involved armed people brandishing their weapons and using them to ‘take over’ federal land, in the Dakota protests the native americans are unarmed, and they are protesting on their own land, not federal land, the pipeline is being run through their reservation which by treaty is theirs, big difference, unarmed vs armed, and ‘protesting’ (if you call brandishing arms protesting, I don’t) on their own land or protesting on government land.