If you would like more information about what's happening in Oregon, please FReepmail me.
I lost my Oregon list when my computer crashed last year, so please send me your name by FReepmail if you want to be on this list.
Posted on 01/04/2016 12:47:14 PM PST by taraytarah
Amid peaceful protests and the occupation of a national wildlife refuge building in Oregon, Glenn Beck said Monday that ranchers Steven and Dwight Hammond should not go to jail again but the judge who originally sentenced them should.
"They received their sentence. They went and they served their sentence. They paid their due, as according to a judge," Beck said on The Glenn Beck Radio Program. "If the judge broke the law, then the judge needs to go to jail."
Dwight Hammond, 73, and Steven Hammond, 46, have been charged with arson for fires they said they lit in 2001 and 2006 in order to reduce the growth of invasive plants and protect their property from wildfires. The fires crossed into federal land managed by the Bureau of Land Management, but the Hammonds ultimately contained and extinguished them.
Three years ago, U.S. District Judge Michael Hogan, who is now retired, sentenced the father, Dwight Hammond, to three months in prison and the son, Steven Hammond, to one year.
Hogan had reduced the Hammonds' sentences from the five-year minimum required because he said it would have violated the constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment, adding that it would have been "grossly disproportionate to the severity of the offenses here."
In October of last year, after both men had served their sentences, U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken deemed the father-son duo's time served to be too short under federal law and ordered them back to prison Monday, Jan. 4, to serve out the remainder of the five-year minimum sentence...
(Excerpt) Read more at theblaze.com ...
She's following the law passed by our Congress which is over 75% male.
Go to the Bundy website for a factual history of this situation .
I never mentioned double jeopardy.
The Hammonds claim--and their supporters parrot--that the fire accidentally spread to public land, it was accidental. But there was evidence of intent at trial, and the jury convicted them:
But in September 2001, the Hammonds again set a fire on their property that spread to nearby public land. Although the Hammonds claimed that the fire was designed to burn off invasive species on their property, a teenage relative of theirs testified that Steven had instructed him to drop lit matches on the ground so as to “light up the whole country on fire.†And the teenager did just that. The resulting flames, which were eight to ten feet high, spread quickly and forced the teenager to shelter in a creek. The fire ultimately consumed 139 acres of public land and took the acreage out of production for two growing seasons.
Yeah, that was kind of my point—Exhibit A is all the Mexican gangs growing marijuana on federal and/or other public lands.
It’s the same reason I ponder why the feds go after someone who does something minor such as change a pond on their land which the feds then deem a violation of federal law so you go to prison, while the “homeless” occupy public property, violate every environmental law in the book, the most important being creating unsanitary health conditions, and everybody’s heart starts bleeding for them.
Why not turn the EPA loose on the homeless for violation of the Clean Water Act, for example? It’s a strict liability crime, and just toss all the homeless into prison. Most of them would quickly wise up and find another line of work/scamming.
If you would like more information about what's happening in Oregon, please FReepmail me.
I lost my Oregon list when my computer crashed last year, so please send me your name by FReepmail if you want to be on this list.
I said that the first day this story broke.
Thanks.
Owebowma could put this fire out immediately and pardon these men couldn’t he?
But he won’t. He wants to make whitey pay. He wants to make these men out to be the poster-children of all malitias.
He wants to stoke the flames and destroy America. In order to fundamentally change it.
OK I found this:
[The original judge] U.S. Judge Michael Hogan agreed with the Hammonds’ defense lawyers that setting fire to juniper trees and sagebrush in the wilderness was not the type of crime that Congress had in mind when it set mandatory sentences of five to 20 years for anyone who “maliciously damages or destroys, or attempts to damage or destroy by means of fire†any federal property...
http://www.capitalpress.com/Oregon/20151007/judge-sends-oregon-ranchers-back-to-prison
I have also read elsewhere that the jury was not informed that the mandatory sentence was 5 years minimum and 20 years maximum. How could the jury not make an informed decision without that information (if that is true that they were not informed).
I hope that the whole thing is reviewed and maybe go to the Supreme Court because something does not seem right about this.
The problem is that when the law mandates a minimum sentence then the decision is taken out of the judge's hands. They do not have a choice. The judge may have disagreed with it but by law he was supposed to sentence them to a minimum of 5 years.
I have also read elsewhere that the jury was not informed that the mandatory sentence was 5 years minimum and 20 years maximum. How could the jury not make an informed decision without that information (if that is true that they were not informed).
The jury's job was to determine guilt or innocence based on evidence and not on what the potential sentence would be.
I am pretty sure that jury’s are entitled to know the sentence the accused is facing.
Re-sentencing, whether valid or not, is not double jeopardy.
I have known and worked with hundreds of lawyers, I have liked a few. ;>)
You would have been a good lawyer.
I was already raising a family and committed to my profession when I decided I wanted to become a lawyer, but it was just too far to school and it cost too much. I would have loved to had been a career prosecutor.
The punishment has far exceeded the crime. What is the point of further incarceration? Is a pound of flesh not enough? The law is an arse, as is anyone who demands the pound in arrears.
I would not disagree, but Beck is wrong to claim that this is a case of Double Jeopardy.
Allow me to clarify what I originally meant to say in post #15: Beck may be stupid, but these two have already suffered more than enough. I think we can agree.
Beck made a good move to get out of there and put his roots down here in Texas. He did!!!
Well there is. There is the fire that the Hammonds started in 1999 and which spread to federal land. After that the BLM told them that they weren't supposed to be setting fires with out a permit. Then there's the fire they set in 2001 and which spread to federal land and burned out 130 acres. According to the trial transcript that land was unusable for two years. And then we have the latest fire, set while Forest Service firefighters were already battling a nearby fire that lightning had started. When the Hammonds started that one there was a burn-ban in effect due to dry conditions. But they started it anyway and it got out of control like the other ones had. That's when they were charged with the 2006 and the 2001 fires.
So we have the Hammonds, who have had numerous warnings and apparently extensive experience with what happens when your fire gets out of control. They nearly fried a relative during the second fire and could well have put Forest Service fire teams in peril with the 2006 fire. Apparently they don't think the law applies to them, which I guess means they're Democrats. So yes I think the charges were appropriate and if you still think this is all overblown and vindictive then we'll have to agree to disagree. Wouldn't be the first time.
This could turn out okay if Larry Klayman went to Oregon. He’s a magician from Floriduh.
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