Tag: Bureau of Land Management

by Tim Pierce   A federal judge rejected prosecutors’ request Tuesday to reconsider her dismissal of the case against Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, his two sons and friend Ryan Payne. U.S. District Judge Gloria M. Navarro dismissed conspiracy charges against the four men on Jan. 8 after finding that prosecutors had acted “with prejudice” throughout the trial, The Oregonian reported. Federal prosecutors violated federal law and failed to share evidence favorable to the defendants case with the court. “The Court’s finding of outrageous government conduct was not in error,” Navarro wrote in her 11-page ruling (see below), obtained by The Oregonian. “On the contrary, a universal sense of justice was violated by the Government’s failure to provide evidence that is potentially exculpatory.” The prosecutors’ request did not make any new arguments or bring forth any evidence that Navarro had not already considered in her decision to dismiss the case. “The Court gave somber consideration to the ramifications of its Order and found that it was in the interest of justice to dismiss the case with prejudice,” Navarro wrote. “A motion for reconsideration should not be ‘used to ask the Court to rethink what it has already thought.’” Prosecutors requested the court grant another trial…

Reuters is reporting Chief US District Judge Gloria Navarro is declaring a mistrial is the government’s highly controversial criminal prosecution of Cliven Bundy over a range-land dispute that led to a days-long armed standoff in 2014: Bundy, two of his sons and another man had been charged with 15 counts of criminal conspiracy and other violations stemming from the confrontation, which galvanized right-wing militia groups challenging federal authority over vast tracts of public lands in the American West. U.S. District Judge Gloria Navarro told federal prosecutors that they had willfully violated evidence rules and failed to turn over pertinent documents to the defense. Navarro had warned prosecutors last week that she might declare a mistrial after listing documents previously undisclosed by prosecutors that could be used to impeach government witnesses or bolster defendants’ arguments that they felt surrounded by government snipers prior to the standoff. In a stinging rebuke on Wednesday, Navarro said prosecutors knew or should have known of the existence of memos from FBI agents that may have been helpful to the defense. Those memos and other documents, some 3,300 pages in all, were not turned over until well after an Oct. 1 deadline, and then only after repeated efforts by…