Cliven Bundy walks — while Feds lick self-inflicted legal wounds

09 January 2018

Jeepers!

U.S. Nevada District Court judge Gloria Navarro evidently had enough of federal prosecutors' FBI-assisted imitation of Nazi brown shirts.

Yesterday, Her Honor dismissed the federal case against (arguably militia-leaning anarchist and public lands moocher) Cliven Bundy.

This means that federal prosecutors cannot reinstitute the filing, unless an appellate court disagrees with Judge Navarro's interpretation of law.

The judge's exceptionally strong chastisement — of the government team

If one were a samurai-inclined attorney, seppuku would be the mandatory outcome to the Judge Navarro's shaming pronouncement:

"The government's conduct in this case was indeed outrageous," said U.S. District Judge Gloria M. Navarro.

"There has been flagrant misconduct, substantial prejudice and no lesser remedy is sufficient."

[P]rosecutors engaged in a "deliberate attempt to mislead" and made several misrepresentations to both the defense and the court about evidence related to a surveillance camera and snipers outside the Bundy ranch in early April 2014, as well as threat assessments made in the case.

"The court is troubled by the prosecution's failure to look beyond the FBI file," she said.

She said she "seriously questions" that the FBI "inexplicably placed'' but "perhaps hid" a tactical operations log that referred to the presence of snipers outside the Bundy residence on a "thumb drive inside a vehicle for three years,'' when the government has had four years to prepare the case.

"The court has found that a universal sense of justice has been violated . . . .''

[I]t was especially egregious that the prosecutors chose not to share documents that the defendants specifically asked for in pretrial motions and "grossly shocking'' that the prosecutors claimed they weren't aware the material would help the defendants in their defense.

"The government was well aware of theories of self-defense, provocation and intimidation,'' Navarro said.

"Here the prosecution has minimized the extent of prosecutorial misconduct.''

These words are the judicial equivalent of slamming a brick into the prosecution's (evidently malicious) head.

Why was Judge Navarro so angry?

Last month, Judge Navarro had to declare a mistrial in the Bundy matter. The prosecution, she explained, had unlawfully withheld records reportedly included the following not insignificant matters:

Records about surveillance at the Bundy ranch

Records about the presence of government snipers

FBI logs about activity at the ranch in the days leading up to standoff

Law-enforcement assessments dating to 2012 that found the Bundys posed no threat

And internal affairs reports about misconduct by Bureau of Land Management agents

The moral? — Yikes!

I am not sure which to detest more:

Cliven Bundy's theft-like assertion of a militia-like individual right to reject both Government and the Greater Good

the Government's tendency to quasi-militarily impose the Greater Good's, usually undiscussed and never voted upon, merits.

Being a private citizen, Mr. Bundy is free to be a grandstanding (and arguably Commons robbing) ass.

However, Government is supposed to act in accord with the Constitution, when confronting citizens' allegedly illegal behaviors.

So today, with a just set-free alleged public lands moocher/misuser (on one side) and a justly humiliated Government autocracy (on the other) — who reasonable among us wins?

PeteFree.com

Cliven Bundy walks — while Feds lick self-inflicted legal wounds