http://www.tsln.com/news/the-right-thing/
Thursday, August 17, 2017
Live, Right now, let's talk about the legality and importance of the Militias, with Ryan Bundy and Jared Green. The government's lead prosecutor stated in court last week, "Militias are illegal in many states."
http://21stcenturywire.com/2014/04/14/exclusive-new-images-of-blm-warzone-expose-feds-military-fiasco-in-nevada/
Restrictions placed by a federal judge on what defendants can say about being at Cliven Bundy’s ranch in April 2014 are leading to tense moments in the Las Vegas retrial of four men accused of wielding assault-style weapons to stop federal agents from rounding up cattle belonging to the anti-government figure.
Chief U.S. District Judge Gloria Navarro refused Monday to order a mistrial sought by the defense attorney for Eric Parker, a defendant who Navarro ordered off the witness stand last week before telling the jury to disregard his testimony.
Such a dramatic step involving a defendant in the presence of a jury is unusual and might draw scrutiny from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, said Robert Draskovich, a Las Vegas lawyer who said he had never heard of such a move in more than two decades practicing in federal courts. Draskovich is not involved in the Bundy case.
Outside the presence of the jury on Monday, Navarro said she hadn’t wanted to order Parker to step down.
She told prosecutors, defense attorneys and a crowded court gallery that she thought Parker was trying to invite jury nullification of charges, and deliberately “continuing to make a mockery” of court rulings she handed down before the retrial that limited the scope of defense presentations to what the men saw and did, not what they felt or why they acted.
A jury in April found two co-defendants guilty of some charges, but it failed to reach verdicts for Parker, Scott Drexler, Steven Stewart and Richard Lovelien.
Bundy, his sons Ammon and Ryan, and two other defendants are due for trial later this year. Six others, including two other Bundy sons, are slated for trial next year.
Navarro ruled that defendants can’t argue this time that they were acting in self-defense or in the defense of other protesters.
They can’t say they were motivated to drive to southern Nevada from Idaho and Montana after hearing about scuffles involving unarmed Bundy family members and Bureau of Land Management agents using dogs and stun guns.
They can’t refer to Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval and other elected officials criticizing federal agents for creating what the Republican governor called an “atmosphere of intimidation” in the days before the standoff.
They can’t point to so-called “First Amendment zone” corrals set up for protesters well away from the Bundy ranch; they can’t cite claims of infringement on free-speech and Second Amendment rights; and they can’t refer to the decades in prison they might face if they’re convicted.
“Just because law enforcement is pointing a gun doesn’t mean you get to point one back,” Navarro said Monday.
Parker was famously photographed during the April 2014 standoff flat on his stomach on the pavement of an Interstate 15 overpass, looking down an AK-47-style rifle toward heavily armed federal agents in a dry river bed below.
Drexler is seen in a similar photo, and images show Steven Stewart carrying an assault-style rifle, but not aiming it.
Richard Lovelien also had a rifle, but his lawyer, Shawn Perez, said there is no photograph in evidence showing him pointing it at anyone.
Defense attorneys say their clients are being unfairly and unconstitutionally denied a chance to explain for jurors what they saw and heard and why they went to the Bundy ranch, where they are accused of conspiracy, weapon, assault on a federal agent and other charges.
“We need to be able to defend ourselves, to rebut, to impeach against accusations,” Parker’s attorney, Jess Marchese, protested during morning-long arguments held outside the presence of the jury now in a fourth week of testimony. “That’s why we’re here.”
Drexler was expected to take the stand in his defense, but Stewart and Lovelien said they won’t do so.
Scott Drexler Testifies in Bunkerville Retrial
by Shari Dovale
Last week showed mayhem in the Judge Gloria Navarro’s courtroom in Las Vegas. The defense attempted to call defendant Eric Parker to the witness stand to testify in his own defense.
The prosecution showed their paranoia when they began their objections nearly immediately. Judge Navarro had laid out guidelines for Parker’s testimony that focused on not allowing the Federal agents to be placed in a bad light. She has insisted that there is no self-defense allowed when the ‘victim’ is a federal agent or law enforcement officer. She claims there is no evidence that these agents used excessive force on April 12, 2014.
However, though she has allowed these agents to cry on the witness stand to emphasize their fear of the protesters, she has put her iron fist down about the defendants doing the same. Navarro allowed the prosecution to object to Parker using the words “snipers” and the “First Amendment Zone”.
Jesse Marchese, Parker’s attorney, asked him a question which went directly to refuting the testimony of Ranger Alexandra Burke. She had claimed that she saw Parker point his weapon directly at her, however, she had said that she was to his left, up near the generator near the command post.
Parker was asked which direction he was focusing on while he was on the bridge. He responded that he was looking forward at the people in the wash, and then up and to the right. He did not say that he was looking at the snipers that were up on the mesa, but objections rang through the courtroom at the possibility that he might.
This gave Navarro the excuse she needed to remove Parker from the witness stand and strike his entire testimony from the official record. This all took place last Thursday.
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Monday morning brought several motions, including a request for sanctions from the prosecution. The defense also filed a motion for mistrial, which Navarro promptly denied.
The government claimed that the attorneys for Parker, Drexler and Stewart have violated the court’s orders to not include evidence for jury nullification repeatedly, including the closing arguments Mr. Leventhal presented in the previous trial.
The prosecution is stretching the limits with this motion for sanctions and have demanded they be allowed to preview, verbatim, each of the three closing arguments before they are presented.
Todd Leventhal, attorney for Scott Drexler, rose to the challenge and argued that before sanctions can take place, there must be a contempt charge, which will absolutely require these proceedings to be halted while the three attorneys hire attorneys for themselves.
This seemed to alarm Judge Navarro and she clearly stated that she would not impose sanctions on anyone at that time. However, during the morning’s arguments, Navarro had to tell the defense that she thought they were ‘showboating’ with their attempts to mislead the jury into nullification, and she was finding it very offensive.
Her ideas of misleading the jury focus on the defense wanting to actually defend themselves. She has denied them every available defense including self-defense, defense of others, and provocation by the government. She has said that the first and second amendments are not valid defenses.
The only defense she is allowing them is “mere presence” which means that someone who just happens to be at a crime scene isn’t guilty of the crime. This, of course, does not apply to the defendants, therefore, she is setting them up for a guaranteed conviction.
AUSA Myhre did ask for defendant Scott Drexler to proffer his testimony without the jury present, and this created a new round of arguments. Navarro eventually ruled that Drexler would not have to preview his testimony. Drexler chose to testify in front of the jury today.
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Drexler took the witness stand after lunch.
He did very well during his testimony, which means that he did not give Navarro a reason to remove him and strike it from the record.
Drexler is from Challis, Idaho, town of about a thousand people. He did not know any of the protesters from Bunkerville before April 12, 2014, except for Eric Parker. They decided to go down to protest, though Drexler was not allowed to say how he learned of the protest or whyhe wanted to go.
He was asked about Sugar Pine Mine in Oregon during his testimony, but the prosecution immediately objected questioning the relevance of this information. Remember, the prosecution brought this evidence into the trial, now they are questioning it’s relevance.
When Drexler mentioned the helicopters at Bunkerville, the same relevance objections came from the them. Again, all evidence has been entered by the prosecution. This is the same prosecution team that thought it relevant to link the defendants to Timothy McVeigh.
Drexler was able to say that he was afraid that the government was going to kill him. This was said twice in front of the jury. Of course, it was objected to, but Drexler was not removed from the witness stand. This was more information than Parker was allowed to say before he was removed from the witness box.
This tells me that Navarro was not on her game, seemingly due to the large numbers of people in the gallery and on the courthouse steps, or she is really gunning for Parker.
The jury questions were interesting. There were about a dozen jurors that submitted questions, however, Navarro would not allow most of their questions to be asked, whether because she felt they were not relevant or because she felt it was information that had already been discussed.
This was never the standard for the government’s witnesses. The jury was allowed to ask any question they wanted. It ended up being about 4 questions that she allowed to be presented to Drexler.
Judge Navarro seems afraid to the point of paranoiaconcerning the possibility of Jury Nullification. She continuously states it in court, on the record, that the defense is going for that possibility. She does not want the jury to know about it, or to consider it.
A rally was held outside the courthouse on Monday that included a couple of hundred people that had traveled from various parts of the country. The ‘mere presence’ of these protesters seem to get under the skin of the Chief Judge.
At one point, Navarro accused the defense attorneys of taking part in a ‘charade’ of inciting the community to believe that the prosecution is conspiring against the defendants.
All this during a trial in which the defendants are on trial for conspiracy.
The defense has no other witnesses they are allowed to present. Closing arguments will begin Tuesday.
Defense attorneys withold closing arguments in Bunkerville retrial
By David Ferrara Las Vegas Review-Journal August 15, 2017 –
Defense attorneys sat silently Tuesday, rather than give closing arguments for the four men facing a retrial in the Bundy Ranch standoff.
Hamstrung throughout the trial by a judge’s decision to limit the witnesses they could call, the questions they could ask and the testimony their clients could give, the lawyers made the final decision, a statement of sorts, after discussing the option with the defendants — Eric Parker, Scott Drexler, Steven Stewart and Ricky Lovelien — during a lunch break.
“It was a strategic decision,” said lawyer Jess Marchese, who represents Parker. “We thought we gained more by not giving a closing argument than the government giving a rebuttal.”
Assistant U.S. Attorney Nadia Ahmed spent more than two hours in the late morning and early afternoon laying out the case against each of the four men, charged with driving from other states to Bunkerville in April 2014 to support rancher Cliven Bundy, who prosecutors allege conspired to thwart the federal government’s roundup of roughly 1,000 cows from public land.
Earlier this year, another jury declared that they were deadlocked on all counts against them.
On Tuesday, the prosecutor pointed to social media posts in which the men discussed the activities in the rural southeastern Nevada town, about 80 miles northeast of Las Vegas. She played video of Bundy speaking to a crowd outside his ranch, encouraging his followers to “do what you need to do” to retrieve his cattle from the Bureau of Land Management.
At one point, Ahmed flashed a Facebook post from Lovelien written in all capital letters: “All oathkeepers and militia in proximity need to move into defcon 1 mode.”
The prosecutor repeatedly showed photos of Stewart and Parker, prone on Interstate 15 with long guns pointed toward federal agents.
“We pushed forward and they had to back off,” Stewart wrote on Facebook.
Parker was captured on video being asked whether the standoff could have turned violent. “Absolutely,” he replied.
Ahmed said the defendants’ “words, their attire, their positions and their decisions” proved their guilt. “The intention of these co-defendants is clear. They intended to threaten officers. Officers feared for their safety.”
A day earlier, attorney Todd Leventhal called his client, Drexler, to testify and say that he did not intend to threaten anyone in Bunkerville. But Drexler admitted to pointing his gun at federal agents.
“We were going to get drowned out anyway,” Leventhal said of the decision not to offer a closing argument. “And there wasn’t much more we could add.”
U.S. District Judge Gloria Navarro barred the defense from referencing constitutional rights to freely assemble and to bear arms. She also prohibited mention of alleged misconduct or excessive force by law enforcement.
Stewart’s lawyer, Rich Tanasi, agreed with Leventhal.
“It was the best decision available to us at the time,” he said.
The lack of a final statement from the defense left acting U.S. Attorney Steven Myhre without a rebuttal, a common feature of jury trials. Prosecutors have the right to argue last because they are charged with the burden of proof.
Shawn Perez, who represents Lovelien, added defense closing statements could have backfired.
“We were going to get hammered on rebuttal,” he said. “We would have been slammed one way or another.”
As the six men and six women on the jury began to deliberate, about 30 supporters of the defendants gathered in a circle on the seventh floor, just down the hallway from the entrance to Navarro’s courtroom.
The group held hands, knelt and prayed for “divine protection” for the “political prisoners” who have been locked up through both trials.
Wednesday, May 31, 2017
Bundy Family Letter to Supporters
Friends and Fellow Patriots,
It’s time we have a conversation about not hurting the Bundys when we are trying to help. My family loves and appreciates everyone who has helped bring attention to our cause. You are proud Americans who stand by our Constitution, and for that we will always love you. The calls, letters, videos, and rallies have paid off in ways we probably don’t even know yet. I want my Dad and brothers home, and I have faith they will return to us soon.
I am concerned that sometimes we patriots hurt our own cause by being too hard on people who want to understand but aren’t exactly like us. I am afraid that some supporters who really want to help us are too quick to turn on other supporters. We need to stand together. If we are going to fix what is wrong with our great country, we will need to bring together a whole lot of people who have a wide variety of opinions. We can’t afford to scare away good-hearted people who want to help.
I have a few suggestions for being more effective in spreading the message:
1. First, and most importantly, nobody but my family speaks for my family. Nobody. Please be honest when you are talking to people and say that you speak for yourself.
2. Don’t attack anyone who wants to understand more. Explain, educate, and always be a good friend. Never push supporters away over differences of opinion. Having the right to form our own opinions and express them freely is part of what makes America great.
3. Give credit where it is due. We have had politicians listen to our message. Maybe they don’t act as swiftly or as decisively as we would wish, but we need to encourage them to keep listening and learning. Treating them with anger and contempt will get us nowhere. I don’t respond well when people are rude to me and neither does anyone else. Yes, they work for us, so let’s be the kind of bosses they want to go the extra mile for.
4. Make sure you give the facts and the facts only. The truth about our situation is bad enough. Tell that. When you start exaggerating or spreading rumors, it destroys our credibility and turns people off to listening to the true injustices and the core values of our cause. It’s tempting to believe and repeat stories, but stick to verifiable facts.
5. Make some noise, but don’t overwhelm the audience. We certainly want the whole world to hear about the Bundys, the Hammonds, and the brave souls who stood for both. What we don’t want is for everyone to tune us out because they get an onslaught of phone calls, e mails, and letters that they can’t keep up with. Be polite and friendly while you’re being a squeaky wheel but not a nuisance.
We have to be careful that we don’t treat our friends like enemies. When someone is willing to listen and ask questions, they are friends. When someone takes a phone call or responds to a letter, they are a friend. They may be a friend who needs to be educated, but they certainly are not an enemy who needs to be yelled at or disrespected. As Benjamin Franklin said: “A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still.” Shouting and bullying won’t win people over to our cause. Love and education will win people over to our cause.
This cause is larger than any one of us. It is larger than my family. My family has chosen to make huge sacrifices to defend the cause of liberty and the Constitution, but this isn’t about us and it isn’t about you. It is about the future of America. Don’t let personal grievances matter more to you than justice. Invite everyone to join the fight for liberty, and help them along the path. Politicians, journalists, neighbors, and random strangers on the street all respond best to loving kindness and respect. We can give both of those things in the cause of freedom.
Let’s make America great again together!
Sincerely,
Bailey Bundy Logue
It’s time we have a conversation about not hurting the Bundys when we are trying to help. My family loves and appreciates everyone who has helped bring attention to our cause. You are proud Americans who stand by our Constitution, and for that we will always love you. The calls, letters, videos, and rallies have paid off in ways we probably don’t even know yet. I want my Dad and brothers home, and I have faith they will return to us soon.
I am concerned that sometimes we patriots hurt our own cause by being too hard on people who want to understand but aren’t exactly like us. I am afraid that some supporters who really want to help us are too quick to turn on other supporters. We need to stand together. If we are going to fix what is wrong with our great country, we will need to bring together a whole lot of people who have a wide variety of opinions. We can’t afford to scare away good-hearted people who want to help.
I have a few suggestions for being more effective in spreading the message:
1. First, and most importantly, nobody but my family speaks for my family. Nobody. Please be honest when you are talking to people and say that you speak for yourself.
2. Don’t attack anyone who wants to understand more. Explain, educate, and always be a good friend. Never push supporters away over differences of opinion. Having the right to form our own opinions and express them freely is part of what makes America great.
3. Give credit where it is due. We have had politicians listen to our message. Maybe they don’t act as swiftly or as decisively as we would wish, but we need to encourage them to keep listening and learning. Treating them with anger and contempt will get us nowhere. I don’t respond well when people are rude to me and neither does anyone else. Yes, they work for us, so let’s be the kind of bosses they want to go the extra mile for.
4. Make sure you give the facts and the facts only. The truth about our situation is bad enough. Tell that. When you start exaggerating or spreading rumors, it destroys our credibility and turns people off to listening to the true injustices and the core values of our cause. It’s tempting to believe and repeat stories, but stick to verifiable facts.
5. Make some noise, but don’t overwhelm the audience. We certainly want the whole world to hear about the Bundys, the Hammonds, and the brave souls who stood for both. What we don’t want is for everyone to tune us out because they get an onslaught of phone calls, e mails, and letters that they can’t keep up with. Be polite and friendly while you’re being a squeaky wheel but not a nuisance.
We have to be careful that we don’t treat our friends like enemies. When someone is willing to listen and ask questions, they are friends. When someone takes a phone call or responds to a letter, they are a friend. They may be a friend who needs to be educated, but they certainly are not an enemy who needs to be yelled at or disrespected. As Benjamin Franklin said: “A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still.” Shouting and bullying won’t win people over to our cause. Love and education will win people over to our cause.
This cause is larger than any one of us. It is larger than my family. My family has chosen to make huge sacrifices to defend the cause of liberty and the Constitution, but this isn’t about us and it isn’t about you. It is about the future of America. Don’t let personal grievances matter more to you than justice. Invite everyone to join the fight for liberty, and help them along the path. Politicians, journalists, neighbors, and random strangers on the street all respond best to loving kindness and respect. We can give both of those things in the cause of freedom.
Let’s make America great again together!
Sincerely,
Bailey Bundy Logue
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