Monthly Archives: July 2019

Ninth Circuit vacates Joe Robertson’s Clean Water Act conviction | Pacific Legal Foundation

July 10, 2019: Today the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the conviction of Navy veteran Joe Robertson, who was sentenced to 18 months in prison and ordered to pay $130,000 in fines after he dug fire-fighting ponds near his home in Montana. Sadly, Joe passed away in March, but his wife, Carri Robertson, continued his legal battle.

“We are very pleased that the Ninth Circuit agreed that Joe’s convictions should be vacated and very pleased for Carri, who will no longer have a $130,000 federal judgment hanging over her head,” said Tony Francois, a senior attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation. “It has been an honor to represent Joe and now to be able to complete his vindication on behalf of his wife, Carri.”

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Interior docs: ‘We could be in for a little bit of a siege’

Within days of the 2016 armed occupation of Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, then-Interior Secretary Sally Jewell pressed President Obama to prosecute the anti-government activists leading the siege, saying “bringing these people to justice” was critical to the safety of federal land managers.

The comments were included in 2,500 pages of newly released emails E&E News reviewed between top Interior aides and officials during the 2016 incident when Nevada ranchers Ryan and Ammon Bundy led anti-government activists in a 41-day siege of a remote federal site in eastern Oregon.

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Idaho 3 Percenters seek ‘friend of the court’ status in Oregon refuge occupiers’ appeal of federal convictions

Montana resident Roger L. Roots, a convicted felon who was allowed to serve as a volunteer paralegal for Ryan Bundy in the Oregon standoff case, filed the friend-of-the-court motion on behalf of the “Real 3% ers of Idaho,’’ and the “Idaho Political Prison Foundation.’’

The Idaho Political Prisoner Foundation provides money, obtained through donations, to inmates in jail or prison resulting from what it calls “non-violent Constitutional protest and activism,’’ according to the motion.

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