Sometimes the federal government tries to push people around and a good portion of the time the government tends to be successful. However, every once in a while you fill find people that have the guts to stand up instead of playing dead and rolling over.
In a shocking, sudden turn of events, one of the country’s most controversial cases that went to court over a year ago has just ended with all charges dropped against this person.
Three others involved in this massive news piece have also been exonerated.
While there will be much excitement over this stunning decision, there are likely to be riots as well from the opposition. Was justice effective served? It depends on where you stand on the issue of what this “crime” was.
Barack Hussein Obama was this patriot’s biggest nemesis whose orders led to a deadly standoff. With a new president in charge, things have changed dramatically on one of the country’s biggest cases that would have gone much differently had President Donald Trump not been in office.
Fox News reports: A federal judge dismissed all charged against rancher Cliven Bundy and three others
U.S. District Judge Gloria Navarro cited “flagrant prosecutorial misconduct” in her decision to dismiss all charges against rancher Cliven Bundy, two of his sons and another person.
This comes after a standoff two years ago that ended in a court battle that began in October of 2017.
Bundy is a folk hero who stood up to the federal government (Associated Press)
The embarrassment a federal judge dealt to government prosecutors last month in the Cliven Bundy case could be set to resume Monday, at a hearing to determine whether the cattle rancher who became a folk hero long before he beat the feds can be retried.
U.S. District Judge Gloria Navarro on Dec. 20 declared a mistrial in the high-profile case. It was only the latest, stunning development in the saga of the Nevada rancher, and served as a repudiation of the federal government. Navarro accused prosecutors of willfully withholding evidence from Bundy’s lawyers, in violation of the federal Brady rule.
The Brady rule, named after the landmark 1963 Supreme Court case known as Brady v. Maryland, holds that failure to disclose such evidence violates a defendant’s right to due process.
“In this case the failures to comply with Brady were exquisite, extraordinary,” said Fox News legal analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano. “The judge exercised tremendous patience.”
The 71-year-old Bundy’s battle with the federal government eventually led to what became known as the Bundy standoff of 2014. But it began long before that.
In the early 1990s, the U.S. government limited grazing rights on federal lands in order to protect the desert tortoise habitat. In 1993, Bundy, in protest, refused to renew his permit for cattle grazing, and continued grazing his livestock on these public lands. He didn’t recognize the authority of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) over the sovereign state of Nevada.
The federal courts sided with the BLM, and Bundy didn’t seem to have a legal leg to stand on. Nevertheless, the rancher and the government continued this dispute for 20 years, and Bundy ended up owing over $1 million in fees and fines.
Things came to a head in 2014, when officials planned to capture and impound cattle trespassing on government land. Protesters, many armed, tried to block the authorities, which led to a standoff. For a time, they even shut down a portion of I-15, the main interstate highway running through Southern Nevada.
Tensions escalated until officials, fearing for the general safety, announced they would return Bundy’s cattle and suspend the roundup.
Afterward, Bundy continued to graze his cattle and not pay fees. He and his fellow protesters were heroes to some, but criminals to the federal government. Bundy, along with others seen as leaders of the standoff, including sons Ammon and Ryan, were charged with numerous felonies, including conspiracy, assault on a federal officer and using a firearm in a violent crime. They faced many years in prison.
