Another trial centering on the debate over land rights in the West gets underway Thursday.
In Nevada, opening statements are scheduled for Feb. 9 in the trial of six men accused of participating in an armed standoff with federal agents in 2014. None of the men is named Bundy, but the incident happened at Cliven Bundy’s ranch in Bunkerville. He and some of his sons will be tried later.
Ammon and Ryan Bundy were the leaders of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge occupation in Oregon last year. After winning acquittal in Oregon, the Bundys will be tried with their father in the third of three trials scheduled for 17 total people charged in the Bunkerville standoff.
OPB's Geoff Norcross spoke with Jenny Wilson, a reporter for the Las Vegas Review-Journal covering the first trial of six "gunmen and followers" in Nevada.
Geoff Norcross: What are these six men charged with?
Jenny Wilson: So these six men have been described by prosecutors as “the gunmen.” They’re the people who saw online postings, Facebook posts, blogs about the protests that were going on in Bunkerville and they drove down to get involved. They were ultimately there on the day that the armed standoff occurred against federal agents. So they’ve been charged were acting out a court order to seize it.
Norcross: You mentioned conspiracy and I want to drill down on that for a second because Ammon and Ryan Bundy were acquitted of conspiracy charges in their trial here in Oregon. Do you know if the outcome in that trial had any bearing on the prosecution strategy this time?
Wilson: In terms of strategy in the case, that’s not something they will disclose insofar as trial strategy. In certainly has had a bearing in some of the pretrial motions that we’ve seen from them. Certainly after the acquittals came down up in Oregon, the government here filed a motion dividing the 17 defendants into three different trials. They’ve divided them by culpability, essentially, so this first group is who the government themselves have said were least involved. The Bundys are coming later and they’re in the more culpable group of “leaders,” is how the government has described it. They also recently filed a motion that the judge granted a few days ago precluding any mention of the Oregon trial during this upcoming trial against the six “gunmen” in the case.
Norcross: Why did it take almost three years to come to trial?
Wilson: Whenever you have a federal investigation, it sometimes takes longer than others. I know there’s certainly speculation on the part of the defendants that they waited for the Oregon verdict to come down, but this is something that been investigating and sometimes it just takes a while. The indictment didn’t come down until last year. So when you have 17 defendants and it’s such a complex case with so much discovery, a year is really not that long for it to go to trial. As for why it took two years to investigate, that’s not information that I’m privy to.
Norcross: And of course, Cliven Bundy didn’t get arrested until last year, so there’s that. The prosecutors are working for a federal justice department that, it’s safe to say, is in transition. The attorney general Jeff Sessions will be sworn in Thursday. Can you say if this affected how the federal attorneys pulled their case together at all?
Wilson: Well, I think most of the preparation for this case was done, obviously, ahead of the election, ahead of the new administration. So in terms of trial strategy: probably not going to be much of a difference. I know that the hiring freeze has certainly affected the office as they have positions that they were prepared to fill. Sessions was obviously confirmed just Wednesday, so it might take a little while before you start to see those changes. But whenever you have an issue of federal public lands, I think that that’s something that everybody’s definitely watching.
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