John Lamb, great opening arguments by the defense,Nov. 14 ~ J Grady
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John Lamb, great opening arguments by the defense,Nov. 14 ~ J Grady
Bryan Hyde, defense makes its first opening statement and knocks it out of the park ~ J Grady
Roger Roots and Attorney Robert O. Kurthhave filed a “Rule 60(b)” motion to vacate and set aside a 1998 judgement against Cliven Bundy. Video at link
https://www.facebook.com/roger.roots...96936200793212
https://scontent-dft4-1.xx.fbcdn.net...d4&oe=5AA199F9
Roger Roots is with Sarah Redd and 5 others.
9 hrs ·
Big News! Attorney Robert O. Kurth and I have filed a "Rule 60(b)" motion to vacate and set aside the court orders in Cliven Bundy's 1998 civil case. That case ended in summary judgment in 2013, leading to the BLM's attempts to round up Cliven's cattle in 2014. (We all know how that turned out.)
https://scontent-dft4-1.xx.fbcdn.net...89&oe=5A91EC80
Edit: The video was uploaded to jewtube by J Grady
John Lamb and Attorney Bret Whipple, attorney for Cliven Bundy Nov. 15 ~ Valley Forge Network
Bryan Hyde talks about Ryan Bundy’s opening statements Nov. 15 ~ http://youtu.be/YKPYGs4JRUw
John Lamb & Kelli Stewart end of day, first witness Nov. 15 ~ Valley Forge Network
Bryan Hyde talks about the first witness, elaborates a little more on Ryan Bundy’s opening statement and touches on why Ammon Bundy was not granted pre-trial release. Nov. 15 ~ J Grady
Sarah Redd Buck gives a 35 minute breakdown on Ryan Bundy's opening statements ~ J Grady
Ryan Bundy’s Brilliant Comments in Court
Ryan Bundy’s Brilliant Comments In Court
RYAN DID NOT FEAR THE CONSEQUENCES OF SPEAKING BOLDLY, BUT RESPECTFULLY, OF HOW AWESTRUCK HE WAS BY THE BALD FACED INJUSTICE OF THE SYSTEM.
November 14, 2017 Nevada, Opinion 7
https://redoubtnews.com/wp-content/u...an-564x381.jpg
Ryan Bundy’s Brilliant Comments In Court
by Loren Edward Pearce
On November 13 and 14, 2017, I attended the Las Vegas court and witnessed the miraculous release of Ryan Bundy.
On Tuesday morning, November 14, Federal prosecutor Myhre, asked for a continuance based on the government request that they have more time to review some discovery involving emails. Judge Navarro asked the defense for their response to the government’s request. She polled each defense attorney and when she came to Ryan Bundy, representing himself, Ryan said to the effect,
“Your honor, I think it is ludicrous that defendants who have plead guilty through a plea deal are rewarded with freedom from pretrial detention, but if defendants maintain their innocence, they are punished with prison prior to any conviction. It is upside down. We are not presumed innocent, if we have to spend time in prison without any conviction. I oppose any continuance and I agree with the other attorneys that the remedy is a mistrial.”
No other attorney dared to bring up the “upside down” nature of the court’s position that, if a defendant could no longer stand the horrors of pretrial prison, they were rewarded with pretrial release by accepting a plea deal, while those who knew they were innocent and rejected the plea deal, had to suffer the agony of prison during the time it took to have a trial and complete the proceedings.
Ryan, now a “halfway house” man, with partial freedom, was speaking from a new vantage point. He no longer was barred from going out into the lobby or mingling with the court observers.
Many defendants would be cowed into thinking that they owed everything to the good graces of the judge, who had the power to free him or imprison him, at her whim. Ryan, however, did not fear the consequences of speaking boldly, but respectfully, of how awestruck he was by the bald faced injustice of the system.
It was a joy to see Ryan Bundy walking freely in and out of the courtroom. He asked me where the restroom was and I felt a surge of joy being able to tell him where the modern, clean, nicely appointed men’s room was. What a contrast to what he experienced in solitary with the squalid conditions of a toilet that didn’t work, and no toilet paper. What a contrast to the tiny window in his solitary cell door, where he received his meager rations and made calls on a telephone with a cord that was too short.
What a joy to see his wife Angie with their little daughter on the first floor, waiting to go to lunch with Ryan.
Ryan’s comments were brilliant because their simple “horse sense” logic put to shame the convoluted and tortured logic of a justice system and a federal judge who arrogantly claim that pre-trial prison is the rule, and that if you are given what is rightfully yours, a presumption of innocence and pre-conviction release, that you should be grateful to that system for an exception to the rule.
I like to compare it to a thief stealing your wallet, taking the cash and returning your credit cards and driver license, for which you should be grateful. That works in an upside down world, but in a world of common sense, the thief should have never taken your wallet to start with and the court should have never denied you bail nor denied pre-trial freedom to start with.
Yes Ryan, the reasoning of the court is upside down, where the common sense of the framers of our constitution has become the nonsense of Alice in Wonderland.
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Ryan Bundy's opening statement: 'We don't pay rent for something we own'
Updated November 15, 2017 at 7:35 PM; Posted November 15, 2017 at 12:34 PM
http://www.oregonlive.com/oregon-sta...statement.html
LAS VEGAS -- Ryan Bundy, leaning his left arm on a courtroom podium, told jurors Wednesday that his remark to do "whatever it takes'' wasn't a threat but a statement of his determination to protect his family's rights as the government prepared to round up his father's cattle.
"We own the grazing rights. We own the water rights on that area, and we don't pay rent for something we own,'' he said in an hourlong opening statement as the federal trial continued in the April 2014 armed standoff near his father's ranch.
Ryan Bundy, his father Cliven Bundy, brother Ammon Bundy and co-defendant Ryan Payne have pleaded not guilty to conspiracy, assault on a federal officer, weapons and other charges in the confrontation as rangers tried to enforce court orders to corral Bundy cows trespassing on public land near Bunkerville.
Prosecutors accuse the Bundys of blocking convoys involved in the cattle impoundment and amassing a "small army of militia'' to fight the operation that capped more than 20 years of Cliven Bundy's refusal to pay grazing fees and penalties.
Ryan Bundy, freshly released from jail to a halfway house after nearly two years in custody, began by displaying a photo of his wife and eight children, then asked the jurors to transport themselves from the congestion and noise of Las Vegas to the much quieter desert where his life began.
"I want to take you out into the hills and see the beauty of our land, the beautiful sunsets ... the setting moon, the bush. The desert is a harsh place sometimes. Picture yourself on a horse. ... Place yourself there,'' he said. "Feel the freedom.''
He said the government won't be able to prove his family meant to harm the government. Instead, he said, they were standing up for their rights.
"There was no conspiracy to impede, to injure, to harm,'' said Bundy, who is representing himself. "No, we're just trying to protect our life, our liberty, the rights we do own, our livelihood, our heritage.''
He characterized the government as abusing its power and called those who came from across the country to support his family "heroes'' for saving their lives.
Bundy said his family was skeptical of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and believed its true intent was to manage his father out of business. He noted that the bureau had successfully rounded up about 400 head of cattle, so he questioned how he, his father, brothers and co-defendants could be accused of preventing the impoundment.
By early April, he said federal snipers trained rifles on him and the Bundy ranch and officers harassed members of his family, including brothers David and Ammon and an aunt.
If any of the Bundy supporters arrived at the dried-up wash off Interstate 15 about 80 miles northeast of Las Vegas just for the opportunity to point guns at a government official, that's "unbeknownst to us,'' Bundy said.
"I can't speak for every person there,'' he added.
He pledged to continue to "do whatever it takes'' to protect his rights, urged jurors to "stand up for freedom'' and invited them to visit his family's ranch when the trial is done.
"I love this land,'' he said. "I am a free man and I intend to stay so.''
Payne's defense attorney Ryan Norwood told jurors that Payne didn't know the Bundys until he received an email from a friend on April 7, 2014, that read, "Have you seen this?"
Attached was an article from "The Last American Patriot" headlined, "Armed Feds Prepare for Showdown with Nevada Cattle Rancher."
That day, Payne called Cliven Bundy, who shared that he was surrounded, so Payne got in his 1993 Jeep Cherokee and headed from Montana to Nevada, Norwood said.
The attorney displayed a photo of Payne holding his two young children. Norwood described Payne's Army service, with two tours in Iraq and a disenchantment with the government when he returned. Payne has a tattoo on his left arm to mark the death of four friends in the war, and his army nickname, "Buddy Lee,'' man of action, his lawyer said. He sees a gun as a tool for protection and carries one everywhere he goes, even to buy milk.
Norwood said Payne, as co-founder of Operation Mutual Aid, looked on the group as a "means to defend people" who couldn't defend themselves. While the government said Payne recruited militia members to thwart the cattle roundup and provoke a battle, Norwood said Payne drew them to protect the Bundys and prevent a fight.
He wanted some people to have guns at the site where Bundy supporters faced off with federal officers on April 12, 2014 "for the same reason agents did, to be safe," Norwood said.
"He wanted people to be able to protest. He wanted everyone to be safe. ... Keeping people safe is not a crime,'' Norwood said.
Ammon Bundy's lawyers chose to waive their openings until prosecutors conclude their presentation of evidence, noting they're still waiting for requested evidence involving FBI emails.
Prosecutors called their first witness in the afternoon, Mary Jo Rugwell, who was the Bureau of Land Management's district manager for southern Nevada from April 2008 through August 2012.
When she arrived, she said, she was briefed by staff about Cliven Bundy's "continuous trespass."
He and his father had paid for grazing permits for 20 years, she said, but Cliven Bundy refused to get a new 10-year permit in 1993 for the 154,000-acre federal tract then known as the Bunkerville Allotment when the government determined that the desert tortoise was a threatened species.
Rugwell said Bundy likely would have been allowed to have the same number of cows, slightly over 100, but with new seasonal grazing restrictions to protect the tortoise. But Bundy ignored repeated notices until the government filed a lawsuit in 1998 and got its first court order for Bundy to remove his cattle.
Rugwell led jurors through the 1998 court order, entered as government Exhibit No. 1. It described how the United States gained title to the land in question in 1848, when Mexico ceded it to the United States. Bundy responded by saying the federal government lacked jurisdiction.
When a federal officer once placed a notice on Cliven Bundy's dashboard, he stepped from his truck and threw it on the ground and one of his sons tore it up, Rugwell said.
For more than a decade, the Bureau of Land Management didn't enforce the order, trying to reach out to Cliven Bundy with no luck, she said. "Any action could have resulted in physical confrontation,'' Rugwell testified.
By December 2011, Rugwell said she made the call to impound Bundy's cattle, describing it as a "last resort."
"Nothing else that I tried worked," she said.
The agency hired a contractor to fly over the area and counted about 900 head of cattle, including many that had wandered as far south as Lake Mead. The cattle were a danger to recreational areas, and damaging vegetation and cultural resources, she said.
The Clark County sheriff even tried to seek a settlement with Cliven Bundy, she said. Her federal agency proposed gathering and selling Bundy's cattle and giving him the proceeds, while shouldering the cost of the impoundment. The other option was for the federal agency to move the cattle to Bundy's 160-acre ranch. She said he showed no interest.
-- Maxine Bernstein
mbernstein@oregonian.com
503-221-8212
@maxoregonian