BUNKERVILLE STANDOFF: DEFENSE LAWYERS UNSEAL DETAILS OF PROSECUTION VIOLATIONS IN CASE
Lawyers for Ryan Payne, one of the four defendants in the Bunkerville Standoff trial, have effectively unsealed three motions they made to dismiss the case.
On Wednesday, with the exclusion of names requested by Judge Gloria Navarro, the paperwork was released to public view by Payne's defense lawyers.
Back on July 5th months before the current trial began, and in the midst of an earlier trial of six men in connection with the case, Payne's lawyers requested copies of all threat assessments prepared before the April 12, 2014 standoff.
The prosecution then responded that the request was part of a "long list of frivolous and vexatious pleadings".
The four threat assessments were not turned over until the trial got underway in November after a government witness admitted existence of the threat assessments.
At that point the prosecutors were claiming the threat assessments were "irrelevant" even though they painted the Bundys as people who would not commit acts of violence totally contradicting the prosecution's claim that the defendants were conspiring to launch an armed assault on federal law enforcement. They are also charged with assault on federal officers in this trial.
Payne's lawyers argued in their motions:
"This court should be 'troubled' by the government's actions and it's 'failure to grasp the severity of the prosecutorial misconduct' involved here, as well as the importance of its constitutionally imposed discovery obligations."
"It bears reminding that this Court sentenced one of these defendants in the Trial 1 group to 68 years (Greg Burleson) and another one is pending sentencing (Todd Engel)"
Payne's attorney's, Brenda Weksler and Ryan Norwood, note that the evidence of a surveillance camera and federal snipers around Bundy Ranch withheld from the defense contradicts the prosesuction's assertion that lies were being told by the defendants about a federal threat to them.
The prosecutors also claimed to the defense that any internal report on Bureau of Land Management agent Dan Love was an "urban legend", yet by early December as the third trial got underway some 500 pages of internal affairs reports on Love were turned over to the defense.
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