Ranching standoff trial a test of federal government control

LAS VEGAS — The ability of the federal government to enforce its own land policies in the West will be tested as a trial begins this week of a Nevada rancher accused of leading a 2014 armed standoff with federal agents in a dispute over cattle grazing.

Federal prosecutors in Nevada have twice before failed to win full convictions at trial of men who had guns during the tense confrontation involving hundreds of protesters who stopped government agents from rounding up cattle belonging to Cliven Bundy.

In opening statements Tuesday, prosecutors will accuse the 71-year-old Bundy, sons Ryan and Ammon Bundy, and co-defendant Ryan Payne of enlisting a self-styled militia to defy government authority.

“If they don’t convict the Bundys, it will look like the federal government can’t enforce its own land policy,” said Ian Bartrum, a University of Nevada, Las Vegas, law professor following the case closely. “The Bundys and people like the Bundys have been fighting this battle for decades, and always lost.”

The standoff near Bunkerville, Nev., about 80 miles northeast of Las Vegas, became an iconic moment in a decadeslong turf battle between the government agency assigned to manage vast tracts in the Western U.S. and ranchers whose cows graze the land.

Bundy argues his family has used the same public range for more than a century — even before the 1934 Taylor Grazing Act set federal land policy. He maintains the land belongs to the state, not the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.

Defense attorneys say the four men didn’t conspire with anyone, didn’t wield weapons and didn’t threaten anybody. They cast the standoff as a peaceful protest, with no shots fired and no one injured before overreaching government officials abandoned the cattle round-up and went home.

“I think they’ll lose again,” Bundy attorney Bret Whipple said, pointing to the prosecutorial scorecard after trials that ended in April and August: Two defendants acquitted; two defendants convicted of some charges; two defendants now free after pleading guilty to misdemeanors to avoid standing a third trial. No one was found guilty of conspiracy.