Prosecutors to retry Bundy Ranch standoff defendants for 3rd time

Federal prosecutors who didn't succeed in the Bundy Ranch standoff trial will retry and retry again. 

The U.S. Attorney's Office in Las Vegas confirmed Wednesday it will go back to court for the third time in an attempt to convict two men accused of taking up arms against  federal agents.

Less than 24 hours earlier, a jury had acquitted two standoff defendants and dismissed the most serious charges against two others. Now federal prosecutors say they will retry the men next month on outstanding weapons and assault charges.

The move pushes back the trials for 11 other defendants in the 2014 Bundy Ranch standoff, including Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy and his sons Ammon and Ryan Bundy, who have spent 18 months in prison while awaiting their court date.

O. Scott Drexler and Eric Parker, both of Idaho, were released from prison Tuesday night after a jury acquitted them of conspiracy and extortion, which were the key elements of the government's case.

But they found out Wednesday they have been ordered back to court Sept. 25 to face the charges on which the jury deadlocked.

"Surprised? No. Disappointed? Yes," said Parker's lawyer, Jess Marchese. "It's clear at this point the prosecution is taking this personally now."

Marchese said Acting Nevada U.S. Attorney Steven Myhre twice called Parker a coward during a court hearing Wednesday.

Marchese said it was unprofessional and unnecessary. "This is a business," he said. "And there's no need for emotion in a business."

Parker and Drexler face one count each of assaulting a federal officer and carrying a firearm in the commission of a crime. Parker faces two additional counts of using a firearm to threaten a federal officer.

Jurors twice reject government claims

Jurors dealt government prosecutors their second stinging defeat in the case when, after four days of deliberations, they returned no guilty verdicts against four defendants.

Richard Lovelien of Oklahoma and Steven Stewart of Idaho were acquitted on all counts and walked out of court Tuesday night free after spending 18 months in prison.

This marks the second time a jury failed to convict the defendants on charges related to the standoff, which pitted armed ranchers and militia members against Bureau of Land Management agents in a dusty wash below Interstate 15 about 70 miles north of Las Vegas.

A jury in April deadlocked on charges against the four men. It convicted two other defendants on multiple counts. But it could not agree on conspiracy charges against any of the six.

The men were being retried on conspiracy, extortion, assault and obstruction charges for helping rancher Cliven Bundy fend off a government roundup of his cattle in what became known as the Battle of Bunkerville.

The government launched its second prosecution last month. The case climaxed Aug. 11 when U.S. District Court Judge Gloria Navarro abruptly ended court by ordering Parker off the stand and striking his testimony from the record as jurors watched. 

The defendant was attempting to tell jurors what he saw during the standoff over a barrage of objections from prosecutors. Navarro ruled Parker violated court orders by discussing prohibited topics. Parker returned to the defense table and started crying while Navarro dismissed the jurors.

Marchese said jurors told him Tuesday the incident was a factor in their verdicts. He said jurors were sympathetic to the defendants and their inability to mount a cogent defense in light of restrictions in talking about why they participated in the standoff and what they were thinking while they were there.

The case went to the jury Aug. 15 after lawyers for all four defendants waived closing arguments as part of a protest about court proceedings and restrictive legal rulings.

Judge's rulings limit defense

Navarro's rulings, aimed at trying to avoid jury nullification, severely limited defense arguments. Jury nullification occurs when a jury returns a verdict based on its shared belief rather than on the evidence in a case.

Navarro barred defendants from discussing why they traveled thousands of miles to join protesters at the Bundy Ranch. She did not allow them to testify about perceived abuses by federal authorities during the cattle roundup that might have motivated them to participate.

Navarro also restricted defendants from raising constitutional arguments, or mounting any defense based on their First Amendment rights to free speech and their Second Amendment rights to bear arms. In her rulings, Navarro said those were not applicable arguments in the case.

Federal officials did not face the same restrictions. To show defendants were part of a conspiracy, they referenced events that happened months, or years, after the standoff.

Federal prosecutors, led by Myhre, argued in court the case wasn't about the First or Second Amendments; that the Constitution doesn't give people the right to threaten federal officers.

They said the Bundys' dispute with the BLM was adjudicated and the court issued a lawful order to round up the cattle. When ranchers and the militia conspired to force the release of the cattle, they broke the law, prosecutors argued.

Dozens of federal state and local law-enforcement officers testified in the retrial, saying they were outnumbered and outgunned in the wash and feared for their lives. 

Jurors, however, heard from no defense witnesses. Drexler took the stand and delivered the only defense testimony jurors were allowed to consider.

He testified that even though he brought weapons to the standoff, he did not intend to threaten or assault law-enforcement officers.

Remaining defendants aimed weapons

All four defendants in the retrial admitted bringing guns to the standoff. But pictures of Parker and Drexler aiming their weapons went viral.  

An image of Parker has come to epitomize the 2014 protest. He is pictured lying prone on an overpass and sighting a long rifle at BLM agents in the wash below. The image galvanized the public and brought international awareness to the feud over public lands and the potential consequences of such a dispute.

The Bundy Ranch standoff is one of the most high-profile land-use cases in modern Western history, pitting cattle ranchers, anti-government protesters and militia members against the Bureau of Land Management.

For decades, the BLM repeatedly ordered Bundy to remove his cattle from federal lands and in 2014 obtained a court order to seize his cattle as payment for more than $1 million in unpaid grazing fees.

Hundreds of supporters from every state in the union, including members of several militia groups, converged on his ranch about 70 miles north of Las Vegas.

The standoff was hailed as a victory by militia members. Ammon and Ryan Bundy cited their success at Bundy Ranch in their run-up to the siege of an Oregon wildlife refuge in 2016, also in protest of BLM policies. An Oregon federal jury acquitted Ammon, Ryan and five others in October.

No arrests were made in the Bundy Ranch case until after the Oregon siege ended.

Last year, the government charged 19 people for their roles in the Nevada standoff. Two men took plea deals. Trials for the remaining defendants were broken into three tiers based on their alleged levels of culpability in the standoff.

Although defendants in the first trial and the retrial were considered the least culpable, all 17 defendants face the same charges. Those convicted could spend the rest of their lives in prison.

The second trial, which will include Cliven, Ammon and Ryan Bundy, who are considered ringleaders, was supposed to start 30 days after the conclusion of the first trial. But the start date has been delayed because of the retrials.

Marchese said Wednesday the remaining 11 defendants remain incarcerated and the delays are wearing on them.

 "Those guys want their day in court," he said.

Parker plans on returning to Idaho and seeing his family.

"He wants to be a dad," Marchese said. "He wants to see his kids ... and to be a father."