The Hammond Ranch Affair Will Become Waco II
by Dave Hodges
TheCommonSenseShow.com
04 Jan, 2016
The coming showdown between 150+ Patriots who have gathered near Burns, Oregon is grossly misunderstood by the general public. The following paragraphs shed light on both the history of the present conflict between the Hammonds and the federal government as well as the current status of the situation. It is the express hope of The Common Sense Show, that calmer heads prevail and the present crisis does not end in the loss of life.
The Beginning of the Present Hammond Ranch Crisis
Dwight Hammond and son Steve Hammond, were convicted of lighting fires on federal land. Federal prosecutors wanted blood, overreacted and pursued the two in what could be described as a case of malicious prosecution.
The Hammond family leased land from the BLM for cattle grazing. Steven Hammond started a fire on his own land for noxious weed control. The fire escaped and burned an acre of BLM land that was leased by the Hammond family that they were using to graze cattle. The act was an accident and there was no bad intent on the part of the Hammonds. However, prosecutors sought long prison sentences despite the fact that the damage was extremely minimal. The latest act of burning on BLM land was only one of three actions committed by the Hammonds as similar accidents occurred in 2001 and 2006. Then the feds threw the book at the father-son combination. Most people that review the history of this conflict view the Hammonds as reckless, but agree that their actions were carried out without purposeful criminal intent.
Incredibly, the father and son duo were tried and convicted under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, created by Congress in response to the Oklahoma City bombing. This represented to many a gross miscarriage of justice and served as a shining example of federal tyranny at its worst. Under the Act’s mandatory minimum sentencing requirements, both of the Hammond family members faced a mandatory minimum sentence of five years in prison. And to remind of the public of why we should mistrust the application of federal law enforcement authority, the U.S. Attorney Amanda Marshall was quoted as saying “The verdict sends an important message to those who think that they are above the law.” It’s not as if the Federal government is not already too big, but one would think that the Federal court system would employ a public relations expert to help guide their comments and actions when it comes to the public perception of the carrying out of their mandated duties.
Fortunately, for the Hammonds, a federal judge, acting with much more common sense in October of 2012, the now retired judge, Michael Hogan, ordered the sentences to be dramatically reduced and the payment of restitution was ordered. Most thought this was a reasonable sentence. However, US Attorney Marshall, not satisfied the sentence appealed the case and a three judge appellate panel on the of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, ruled that the men had to serve the minimum sentence. This was outrageous. These two men were not and are not terrorists. Of course, as many who follow these cases know, the federal government’s standard operating procedure is to label anyone that they don’t like as a terrorist, which exponentially increases the penalties associated with prosecution. Subsequently, in October of 2014, the Hammonds were ordered to surrender, once again, to federal authorities in order to serve out their five year sentence. It is a mystery how this ruling serves justice, it does not. The elder Hammond is 73 years old!
The Situation Goes Critical
The Rest…HERE
