It’s hard to imagine how the 2014 federal effort to impound Cliven Bundy’s cattle could have gone any worse, but environmentalists are demanding that the Bureau of Land Management go back and try it again.
Days after a federal judge threw out the case against Mr. Bundy and two of his sons, environmental groups urged Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to remove the family’s cattle from the property near Bunkerville, Nevada.
“We urge Interior not to leave this business unfinished. Time is of the essence,” reads the letter to Mr. Zinke on Wednesday. “Interior must round up these cattle to ensure that a pattern of lawlessness backed up by violence does not perpetuate itself across the public lands of the Western U.S.” – READ MORE
[give_form id=”79809″] [divider][/divider]Nevada rancher walks free after judge finds ‘outrageous’ prosecutorial misconduct
Rancher Cliven Bundy no longer faces federal charges in the 2014 Nevada standoff, but that doesn’t mean his legal fight with the Justice Department is over.
Attorney Larry Klayman said Mr. Bundy is considering filing lawsuits for malicious prosecution and civil-rights violations stemming from the court battle that ended Monday with a federal judge dismissing all charges against him over “flagrant prosecutorial misconduct.”
Mr. Klayman, a conservative activist and former Justice Department lawyer who has represented Mr. Bundyon other matters, said the newly freed 71-year-old rancher may also file ethics complaints against federal prosecutors.
U.S. District Court Chief Judge Gloria Navarro “didn’t dismiss this matter out of the goodness of her heart. It was like rats fleeing a sinking ship,” Mr. Klayman said. – READ MORE
[divider][/divider]A federal judge dismissed all charges against Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, his two sons and another man on Monday after accusing prosecutors of willfully withholding evidence from Bundy’s lawyers.
U.S. District Judge Gloria Navarro cited “flagrant prosecutorial misconduct” in her decision to dismiss all charges against the Nevada rancher and three others.
“The court finds that the universal sense of justice has been violated,” Navarro said.
“Either the government lied or [it’s actions were] so grossly negligent as to be tantamount to lying.”
Bundy’s supporters cheered as he walked out of court a free man, hugging his wife. He said he’d been jailed for 700 days as a “political prisoner” for refusing to acknowledge federal authority over the land around his cattle ranch.- READ MORE
[divider][/divider]Unsealed court documents detail how the team of prosecutors tasked with convicting Cliven Bundy and his sons of crimes relating to a 2014 armed standoff failed to turn over potential exculpatory evidence to the court, The Oregonian reports.
The Bundys’ case ended in a mistrial Dec. 20 after Judge Gloria Navarro ruled that prosecutors violated the civil rights of the defendants by withholding evidence supporting the Bundys’ case. Navarro is considering dismissing the case “with prejudice” and blocking prosecutors from retrying the case. Her decision will come Jan. 8, according to The New York Times.
“There were approximately 3,000 pages that were provided to us only after we started trial,” Bundy lawyer Bret D. Whipple told TheNYT. “I personally have never seen anything like this, especially in a case of such importance.”
Those 3,000 pages include the Bundys’ requests for multiple federal assessments that showed the Bundy family was likely not dangerous. Prosecutors called the requests part of a “long list of frivolous and vexatious pleadings,” until a government witness, under cross examination, revealed knowledge of the assessments in court, The Oregonian reports. – READ MORE
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