Since January 28th 2016 a lot has taken place in this case. I am proud to announce that the verdict for 7 of the protesters in this case was “Not guilty”, this included Ammon Bundy, his brother Ryan Bundy, Shawna Cox, David Fry, Jeff Wayne Banta, Kenneth Medenback, and Neil Wampler.
The jury heard a lot of testimony during the court case, but I believe that the best report on how this played out is from an interview with Juror #4, and his explanation of why the jury came to a “not guilty” verdict. The Oregionian did a great job with this interview, and some of the details from Juror number 4's testimony surprised me. Other parts of it, I fully expected.
This stuck out to me, which is what destroyed the prosecution's case.
The judge floored us when she said that there was no statute against impeding federal officers (by force, threat, or intimidation), nor was there a significant penalty applied to criminal trespass. We all queried about alternative charges that could stick and were amazed that this ‘conspiracy' charge seemed the best possible option. It was not lost on us that our verdict(s) might inspire future actions that are regrettable, but that sort of thinking was not permitted when considering the charges before us.
More about Juror 4's interview here
On the day that Lavoy Finicum was buried, I had my own vigil where I carried my rifle with me to the Maine State House where the capitol building is in Augusta.
I felt it was the least that I could do to honor Lavoy on the day he was buried February 5th 2016.
Vigil at the Maine state house of representatives for Robert LaVoy Finicum
More details about the acquittal can be found at the link below.
Defendants found not guilty in Oregon Malheur wildlife refuge occupation
There are more trials coming up. This is raising more questions about the 15 informants that we at the refuge.
You can read more about a man that the judge in Oregon is trying to silence, despite that Gary Hunt the blogger in question lives in California.
http://www.oregonlive.com/oregon-standoff/2017/01/prosecutors_want_california_ma.html
I wrote another blog about this case of censorship of this California blogger here;
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