The unsatisfying outcome to the Malheur refuge occupation

By The Oregonian Editorial Board
on October 28, 2016 at 12:42 PM, updated October 28, 2016 at 1:24 PM

The unlawful spectacle of the armed takeover and 41-day occupation of a federal facility in Harney County this year was, as if to test credulity, outdone when all defendants were declared not to be guilty.

The verdict was unequivocal, however, and in answer to the federal government's leading charge of conspiracy. The prosecution's failure to prove the occupiers intended to impede federal workers at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge meant the jury, instructed by the judge to narrowly insist on proof that substantiated the charge, had no choice but to say: not guilty.

The man we had called the only true patriot in the protracted mess – Harney County Sheriff Dave Ward – was understated late Thursday in saying he stood by the judicial system as sound and having done its job. We agree. But the verdict is beyond unsatisfying: It signals to any knucklehead in America that trespassing on government property, and trashing publicly owned facilities and equipment, is an action that can be beat ...

It will be some time before the circus in Harney County will fade and join other history-making verdicts, among them O.J. Simpson's acquittal. But it will be very soon that the Bundys face separate charges in Nevada, where their rancher father started it all by resisting the federal government's management of grazing lands ...

http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2016/10/the_unsatisfying_outcome_to_th.html