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Ryan Bundy and Armed militants left the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge they are occupying, to tear down a section of fence on bordering a rancher’s property that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service installed, January 11, 2016, near Burns, Oregon. The removal will allow the ranchers to graze their cattle on the land. Thomas Boyd/Staff
Prosecutors can play an excerpt from an Oregon Public Broadcasting interview with Ryan Bundy for jurors in the second Oregon standoff trial, but it won’t include reporter John Sepulvado’s commentary, a federal judge ruled Thursday.
U.S. District Judge Anna J. Brown made the decision over the strong objections of defense lawyers.
She found that Bundy’s statements during the Jan. 9, 2016, broadcast are those of an alleged co-conspirator in the takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.
Yet she directed the government not to play “Mr. Sepulvado’s editorial statements,” which she said “at a minimum are unfairly prejudicial and should not be admitted.”
In the broadcast, Bundy explained why the occupiers took over the refuge: “From this facility right here is where the charges came from to destroy the Hammonds, to throw the Hammonds in prison. It has taken more than a hundred ranchers out to make this place. It is destroying the lives and liberties and properties, property rights anyway, for those around. It’s being facilitated from this office. So by being here, it puts a stop to that.”
Bundy was referring to father-and-son Harney County ranchers, Dwight Hammond Jr. and Steven Hammond, ordered to return to prison on Jan. 4, 2016, for setting fire to public land and serve out five-year terms.
Prosecutors will argue to jurors that Bundy’s statement goes to the heart of the case. Four defendants, Jason Patrick, Duane Ehmer, Jake Ryan and Darryl Thorn, are charged with conspiring to impede federal employees from doing their work at the refuge through intimidation, threat or force.
Defense lawyer Jesse Merrithew had argued that the broadcast would unfairly prejudice the defendants, particularly because they aren’t able to call Sepulvado to the stand and question him about parts edited out of the interview and their allegations of his bias toward the defendants.
Last week, the judge granted OPB’s motion to quash the government’s subpoena of Sepulvado, finding he had a journalistic privilege not to testify about his news-gathering process.
At one point, the judge suggested either side might call Bundy to testify about the interview or what may have been left out from the broadcast. But Brown determined that Bundy was at legal risk in taking the stand, particularly because he’s awaiting trial in a federal prosecution in Nevada stemming from the 2014 armed standoff with federal land agents by his father’s ranch near Bunkervile, Nevada.
Prosecutors will call FBI agent Ronnie Walker to the stand to introduce the evidence. He’ll note that the government obtained it from OPB’s website. Defense attorneys will have the opportunity to cross-examine Walker about the recording.
The government tried to introduce the broadcast in the first refuge takeover trial last fall, but backed off amid defense opposition. It has become the subject of extensive legal argument since just before jury selection began on Feb. 14. The judge dubbed it “the exhibit that will not go away.”
— Maxine Bernstein
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503-221-8212
@maxoregonian
source http://bit.ly/2mCxJ6D
