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Occupiers of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge lead members of the media on a tour of some federal buildings. The protestors believe some government officails have acted in violation of the U.S. Constitution, and a self-styled "judge" arrived in Burns on Tuesday to convene an unofficial grand jury to look into those claims.

(Thomas Boyd / The Oregonian)

Bruce Doucette

A self-proclaimed "U.S. Superior Court judge" who has been involved in past property rights protests in other states arrived Tuesday in Burns with plans to convene an extra-legal "citizens grand jury" that he said will review evidence that public officials may have committed crimes.

Bruce Doucette, a 54-year-old owner of a computer design and repair shop in suburban Denver, told The Oregonian/OregonLive, that he made the trip at the request of Harney County residents. He said he met with the armed occupiers of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge to hear their evidence, which he called "significant," that government officials have committed crimes.

But he declined to say which officials or which crimes they discussed and said a privately appointed "grand jury" of Harney County residents, not he as a self-appointed judge, would decide whether to charge anyone with a crime.

"The grand jury will convene in private and make its decisions in private," Doucette said. "The role of a superior court judge is not very glorified. All we do is write up" what the local citizens decide, he said.

Doucette's entry into the fray and claim to special Constitutional powers is the latest in a 11-day drama that has drawn a series of attention-seeking, Constitution-citing characters who say they can help Harney County residents solve their problems with federal restrictions on use of public lands.

Ammon Bundy and other organizers of the occupation have said in blog posts and other statements that they believe that lawyers in the U.S. attorney's office, federal court judges and leaders of the Bureau of Land Management, among others, have broken laws and violated the Constitution in their treatment of ranchers Dwight and Steven Hammond.

The Hammonds, who have owned ranch land adjacent to the refuge since the 1960s, were denied access to federal rangelands, to water on federally owned land and have been jailed for five years each for setting fires they say were necessary to protect their property.

In Bundy's view, setting those restrictions on use of federal resources and using the courts to punish the Hammonds for burning 139 acres of federal rangeland represented unconstitutional overreach by federal officials. And the failure of state and local officials, including Sheriff Dave Ward, are also guilty, for failing to protect their citizens from those federal actions.

Doucette would easily reach the same conclusion since the leader of the movement under which he was declared a judge insists that the BLM is a private corporation, not a government agency, and the federal government ceased operating under the Constitution in the 1860s.

Bundy, in a "redress of grievance" to Harney County and Oregon leaders that he posted last month, said evidence of government officials' crimes should be heard and decided in public by a hearing board of Harney residents.

Doucette, by contrast, said 25 local residents would hear testimony and make decisions in private. But both said the conclusions would be put in writing and made public.

There is no evidence to date that a legal determination by a self-styled judge associated with the sovereign citizen movement would have any effect, other than to excite people already allied with that fringe view.

In late November, Anna Maria Riezinger, an Alaska woman who claims to be Judge Anna von Rietz under the same inaccurate reading of the Constitution that Doucette uses, ruled that the members of Congress, the president and the U.S. treasury secretary all committed crimes and directed U.S. marshals and FBI agents to arrest them.

Last week, Riezinger issued a statement about the Harney occupation. In it, she wrote that "The Hammonds and the Bundy Family are Priority Creditors of all the (government agencies) which are now or which have operated in this country in the past. ...They and their countrymen are owed the patent to all land within the geographically defined boundaries of their respective states, free and clear of liens, encumbrances, or other presumptions."

Hundreds of people who have used similar sovereign citizen arguments to justify failing to pay federal income taxes, getting drivers licenses or other government requirements have never prevailed in any court.

-- Betsy Hammond

betsyhammond@oregonian.com