AP Photo/Las Vegas Review-Journal, John Locher

Above: Flanked by armed supporters, rancher Cliven Bundy speaks at a protest camp near Bunkerville, Nevada, on Friday, April 18, 2014.





By MAXINE BERNSTEIN

The Oregonian | OregonLive

LAS VEGAS -- Much is at stake as the long-anticipated trial begins for Cliven Bundy, two of his two sons and a supporter with militia ties -- the main figures accused of rallying armed supporters to the family's Nevada ranch in 2014 in a standoff that launched a movement against federal control of public land in the West.



As opening statements begin Tuesday, the trial will mark the second attempt by the government to send Ammon and Ryan Bundy to prison on serious conspiracy and weapons charges.



The family's confrontation with officers from the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, with citizen snipers perched on hilltops and an overpass, forced the armed rangers to flee. They were cornered on a desert expanse near the Bundy Ranch in Bunkerville as they tried to enforce court orders to remove nearly 1,000 Bundy cattle from grazing on what is now Gold Butte National Monument.

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AP Photo/Rick Bowmer

Above: Burns resident Steve Atkins, left, talks with Ammon Bundy, center, following a news conference at Malheur National Wildlife Refuge near Burns on Jan 8, 2016.



The retreat -- and no immediate prosecution -- emboldened the Bundy sons to move into southeastern Oregon about a year and a half later with a small brigade of self-styled militants. They led the 41-day armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, a 187,756-acre federal bird sanctuary where ranchers also had clashed with government agents.



Last fall, federal prosecutors in Portland suffered a stunning blow when a jury acquitted Ammon Bundy, older brother Ryan Bundy and five others in refuge takeover. Prosecutors in Nevada also were largely unsuccessful earlier this year in two trials of more minor figures in the Bunkerville standoff. Except for guilty verdicts against two of six lesser players, the trials ended with acquittals or hung juries.



Now as the main event starts this week, prosecutors here face immense pressure to send a searing message that has eluded them so far: that people can't take the law into their own hands and threaten federal officers with guns, whether they disagree with cattle grazing laws or federal control of public land.

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AP Photo/Las Vegas Review-Journal, John Locher

Above: Federal law enforcement officers guard a convoy of cattle at the Lake Mead National Recreation Area near Overton, Nevada, on April 10, 2014.



"It's the feds' last opportunity to get it right,'' said Kieran Suckling, executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity, a nonprofit that works to protect endangered species and wild land.



If another acquittal results, the Bundys' success will buoy anti-government activists and provide a "green light to more violent armed attacks on America's public lands and their staff,'' Suckling said.



J.J. MacNab, an expert on anti-government extremism, said the Bundys and their supporters essentially are accused of a carrying out a Wild West hold-up. "Federal law enforcement agents were told, at gunpoint, release the cattle or else,'' she said.



"If acquitted by a jury, this would send a terrible message that armed extortion is acceptable and effective,'' said MacNab, a former fellow at the George Washington University Center for Cyber & Homeland Security.

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Above: Ryan Bundy, Cliven Bundy and Ammon Bundy.

Ian Bartrum, a constitutional law professor at the William S. Boyd School of Law at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, said if the "big shots" get off, "it would seem to suggest the federal government can't prosecute even clear-cut federal crimes related to their land policy.''



There's plenty in the balance for the Bundys, as well.



Cliven Bundy and his sons have been locked up for nearly two years since their arrests in Oregon. Authorities nabbed the elder Bundy on Feb. 10, 2016, as he got off a plane in Portland to visit his sons. Two weeks earlier, Ammon and Ryan Bundy had been arrested leaving the refuge and a day later the occupation ended.

If convicted, the three could face decades in prison, a sentence that could put Cliven Bundy, 71, behind bars for the rest of his life.

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Beth Nakamura/Staff

Above: Supporters celebrate on Oct. 27, 2016, outside the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse in Portland after Ammon and Ryan Bundy and other key figures were found not guilty in the armed takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.



Cliven Bundy's wife, Carol Bundy, who attended much of jury selection, said her husband and sons, who are Mormons, feel "divinely inspired.''



"Cliven is willing to endure to the end. He says he will do whatever it takes to stand for freedom,'' she said, while noting that the family "is reaching the end of where we can go on, emotionally, psychologically and financially.''



Carol Bundy said she has faith that jurors will respond as they did in the Oregon case.



"Look at what the not guilty pleas did in Oregon. I think it woke a lot of people up," she said. "I think it made people look closer at the Constitution and what's happening in their communities.''

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Above: Bundy backer Michele Fiore speaks at a press conference outside the Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse in Portland on February 12, 2016.



Michele Fiore, a Las Vegas council member and former Nevada assemblywoman who has been an outspoken advocate for the Bundys and their cause, said the trial will no less determine the direction of the country.



It encompasses the right to assemble, the right to protest the government and the right to bear arms, she said.



"Our First and Second Amendments will be dictated by this trial,'' Fiore said. "If they were ever to be convicted, it would send a message that you are totally under the control of the government and don't ever question your government.''

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AP Photo/Las Vegas Review-Journal, John Locher

Above: People gather along the Virgin River during a rally in support of Cliven Bundy near Bunkerville, Nevada, on April 18, 2014.





‘RANGE WAR BEGINS TOMORROW’

Similar to the Oregon trial in the Malheur refuge occupation, there’s little dispute about what occurred in the so-called “Battle of Bunkerville.’’

Much of the standoff was caught on video and shared on social media or by news media.



As in the Oregon trial, prosecutors will rely heavily on the defendants' own words – captured in their social media posts, news interviews, emails and videos – in an attempt to show they planned and prepared for a heavy show of force to block the taking of the cattle on April 12, 2014.



Among the government's exhibits is an April 7, 2014, Facebook post by Cliven Bundy. He wrote it after the arrest of another son, Dave Bundy, on a charge of failing to disperse. "They have my cattle and now they have one of my boys," he wrote. "Range war begins tomorrow."

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AP Photo/Las Vegas Review-Journal, John Locher

Above: Cattle belonging to Cliven Bundy are rounded up with a helicopter near Bunkerville, Nevada, on April 7, 2014.



Prosecutors say Cliven Bundy was the "leader, organizer and chief beneficiary" of the conspiracy. Ammon and Ryan Bundy are accused of recruiting followers, interfering with the effort to impound the Bundy cattle, threatening and using force against the officers and threatening the Bureau of Land Management contractors.



Payne, a former soldier from Montana who helped found Operation Mutual Aid, a network of militias, is accused of putting out calls to militias across the country to lend support and arranging their arrival.



SUPPORT WAS 'SPONTANEOUS OUTPOURING'

The Bundys and Payne will argue that they held a political protest to protect the Bundys’ livelihood and challenge alleged abuses by federal officials.

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AP Photo/Las Vegas Review-Journal, John Locher

Above: Federal law enforcement officers block a road at the Lake Mead National Recreation Area near Overton, Nevada, on April 10, 2014. In the foreground are the shadows of protesters.



They'll present their own interviews with media, videos and emails leading up to the confrontation and evidence they say showed "extensive preparations, armament and defensive capabilities'' by rangeland officers in riot-control gear.



Bret O. Whipple, Cliven Bundy's defense lawyer, characterized his client during jury selection as the "little guy" who needed strength in numbers to stand up against the bigger, stronger government.



The defense intends to share the history of Cliven Bundy, who says his family homesteaded at his ranch since the late 1800s and who has refused to pay grazing fees to the federal government for more than 20 years, believing the money should go to the state.



Cliven Bundy contends the armed followers arrived in a "spontaneous outpouring of support,'' which he didn't organize. His lawyer counters that the Bundys were "invaded by an army of BLM agents and hired mercenaries, armed to the hilt and in full military array, who were bent on evicting him and his family from their ancestral home.''



Themes and questions similar to the Oregon prosecutions will pervade this trial: Did the show of force by the Bundys and their supporters and aiming of guns at federal officers constitute a violent crime and threat? Or was it a First Amendment-protected protest where no shots were fired?



U.S. District Judge Gloria M. Navarro has ruled that the defendants can't claim that they acted in self-defense and they can't discuss their interpretation of the U.S. Constitution or beliefs that states control land, not the federal government.



But the judge hasn't completely restricted the four from explaining why they did what they did.

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Above: Ryan Payne works with his guns at his Montana home in 2014.



"To preliminarily exclude all evidence of defendants' state of mind and effect on the listener would improperly prevent defendants from fully presenting defenses to the jury,'' Navarro ruled.



Payne, for example, will contend that he came to Bunkerville "out of a good faith concern for the security of the Bundys,'' according to his lawyers' legal briefs. He'll argue that officers were acting in a dangerous and unlawful manner and cite criticisms of the Bureau of Land Management by public officials, including Nevada's governor.

MISCONDUCT MAY COME UP

The judge also left the door open for defendants to raise concerns about perceived government misconduct in trying to impound the cattle, withholding evidence in the case and misconduct by the BLM official in charge.



In Oregon, a similar move proved successful when defense lawyers revealed that the FBI had sent informants onto the refuge during the occupation, including one who led firearms training.



In the Bunkerville case, the FBI had agents pose as journalists and videotape interviews with some of the unsuspecting defendants.



The U.S. Office of Inspector General found that Daniel P. Love, the now-former Bureau of Land Management's special agent who led the cattle impoundment operation, mishandled evidence in an unrelated criminal investigation and told a subordinate to conceal his conduct.

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AP Photo/Las Vegas Review-Journal, John Locher

Above: Ammon Bundy shows a Taser wound near Bunkerville, Nevada, on April 9, 2014. He was tasered by Bureau of Land Management law enforcement officers while protesting the roundup of what the BLM calls "trespass cattle" that his father, Cliven Bundy, was grazing in the Gold Butte area 80 miles northeast of Las Vegas.



Utah lawyer J. Morgan Philpot, who was on Ammon Bundy's defense team in Oregon, is beside Ammon Bundy again in Nevada. And Ryan Bundy once again is representing himself, with a standby lawyer to help if needed.



This time, all the defendants have chosen to wear jail scrubs, instead of civilian clothes for trial. And Ammon Bundy, who took the witness stand in Oregon, also is likely to testify in this trial.



Whipple, Cliven Bundy's attorney, brings an unorthodox style to court – but he's more down-to-earth and humorous than the bombastic Marcus Mumford, Ammon Bundy's main attorney in Oregon who became known for sparring with the judge and then getting tackled and stunned with a Taser by deputy marshals during a vigorous argument at the end of the trial.



Whipple grew up on a Nevada ranch and wears a black cowboy hat to court. During questioning of potential jurors, he addressed them as "folks'' and posed unusual hypotheticals: How many jurors would accept an all-expenses paid trip to a firing range? How many jurors would accept an all-expenses paid trip to a Nevada ranch?



"Understand, I'm trying to get a sense of folks who are willing to listen to my clients," Whipple told the group.

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Steve Marcus/Las Vegas Sun via AP

Above: Supporters of Cliven Bundy protest in front of the federal courthouse in downtown Las Vegas on March 10, 2016.



LAWYERS CONCERNED ABOUT EFFECT OF MASS SHOOTING

But the Nevada case has some stark differences with the Oregon case.



Federal prosecutors in Las Vegas waited to try the central figures in the Bunkerville standoff after they took the more minor players to trial. They perhaps took a lesson from their counterparts in Oregon, who stepped up their game in the second refuge occupation trial after learning from mistakes in the first, which ended in acquittals for the leaders.



The trial is starting a month after the worst mass shooting in modern American history, just 7.5 miles from the federal courthouse in Las Vegas.

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Las Vegas Review-Journal

Above: Ammon Bundy holds a sign at cattle corrals in Nevada in April 2014.



Defense lawyers are concerned that the Oct. 1 carnage caused by a heavily armed gunman shooting down at a concert crowd from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel, may taint jurors. They're expected to see many photos of guns that Bundy supporters brought to the standoff.



The Bundys and Payne face significantly more, and more serious charges, in Nevada than they did in Oregon. They also could face more than 100 years in prison if convicted. Each is charged with three counts, for example, of using and carrying a firearm in the course of a violent crime, which carries a mandatory minimum sentence of five years in prison, and its sentence would have to run consecutively to sentences imposed in other counts.



Among the other charges against each: conspiracy to impede a federal officer by force, threats and violence, assault, threats against federal officers, obstruction of justice and extortion.

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Steve Marcus/Las Vegas Sun via AP

Above: Supporters of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy place signs in front of the federal courthouse in downtown Las Vegas on March 10, 2016.

The trial is set in a spacious 7th floor courtroom, with seating for about 80 members of the public on cushioned, mahogany-colored wooden benches in the gallery. The judge sits in front of a large gray marble wall that spans the width of the room, with the seal for the federal District of Nevada above her.



About a dozen supporters of the defendants have rallied outside the courthouse, with a large banner and roadside signs. Two supporters who were acquitted at the Oregon trial, Shawna Cox and Neil Wampler, have attended jury selection, as well as Bundy family members and other faithful supporters.



"We're ready to finally tell this story,'' said Daniel Little, another of Ammon Bundy's defense lawyers.

-- Maxine Bernstein

mbernstein@oregonian.com

503-221-8212

@maxoregonian