RUBY RIDGE
There are NO statute of Limitations on MURDER!
VIDEO: Ruby Ridge Documentary
49 min 33 sec - Apr 1, 2006
2 hour documentary Video:
The Atrocities at Ruby Ridge
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P2 Ruby Ridge The Randy Weaver Story |
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P3 Ruby Ridge The Randy Weaver Story |
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P6 Ruby Ridge The Randy Weaver Story |
National Geographic:
The Final Report (Another B.S. Report)
Standoff at Ruby Ridge [N/A]
Tuesday, March 13, 2007,
AUDIO:
http://www.apfn.net/pogo/L001I070313RUBY-RIDGE.MP3
Officials at FBI probed, rewarded
By Jerry Seper, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
November 16, 2002
Senior FBI executives received cash bonuses and promotions while under investigation for
suspected misconduct during an internal bureau review of the August 1992 standoff at Ruby
Ridge, Idaho, that claimed three lives.
The Justice Department's Office of the Inspector General yesterday said in a report the
bonuses and promotions went to former FBI Deputy Director Larry A. Potts, later demoted
and suspended for improper oversight of the deadly siege; and E. Michael Kahoe, a senior
FBI executive sentenced to prison for destroying a critical Ruby Ridge document.
Other cash awards and promotions, the report said, went to Danny O. Coulson, former deputy
assistant director who worked for Mr. Potts; and three senior FBI executives, Charles
Mathews, Robert E. Walsh and Van A. Harp, accused of not conducting proper after-the-fact
investigations to determine what happened at Ruby Ridge.
"While a presumption of innocence is usually appropriate while a subject is under
investigation, rewarding a subject who is later found to have committed misconduct can
result in adverse consequences," the report said. "The FBI should be mindful of
the message it sends to both the investigators in a particular case and the rest of the
FBI when subjects of an investigation are promoted or receive bonuses or awards while
under investigation.
"This is especially true where high-level officials are under investigation, because
investigators may interpret the giving of an award as an indication that senior management
has already judged the merits of the investigation," it said.
The inspector general's report is the result of an investigation to determine whether the
FBI's system of discipline is unfair because senior bureau executives are treated more
leniently than rank-and-file agents. Investigators used the Ruby Ridge incident as an
example.
The report concluded there was insufficient evidence to prove a double-standard of
discipline, in part, because of the low number of cases involving senior executives, but
that the FBI "suffered and still suffers from a strong, and not unreasonable,
perception among employees that a double standard exists."
In the Ruby Ridge case, Vicki Weaver was killed Aug. 22, 1992, by FBI sniper Lon Horiuchi.
He was acting on shoot-on-sight orders, although it has never been determined who
authorized a change in the bureau's rules of engagement that allowed the shooting. Her
son, Samuel, 14, and Deputy U.S. Marshal William F. Degan, died in a separate shootout a
day earlier.
Mrs. Weaver's husband, Randy, had been sought on weapons violations. He and a family
friend, Kevin Harris, also were wounded. They were charged in Mr. Degan's death, but
acquitted by an Idaho jury.
Mr. Potts and Mr. Coulson, who directed the siege from Washington, denied ordering changes
in the bureau's deadly-force policy. But Eugene F. Glenn, who headed the Salt Lake City
office and was the on-site commander at Ruby Ridge, and Richard Rogers, head of the FBI's
hostage-rescue team, have disputed the claims of Mr. Potts and Mr. Coulson.
Among the FBI executives named in the report, only Mr. Kahoe was found guilty of any
wrongdoing. Several were recommended for suspension or demotion, but only letters of
censure were ever issued.
The inspector general's report said Mr. Potts was named acting deputy director in 1994,
prior to the completion of an internal FBI investigation into government conduct during
the Ruby Ridge siege. The report said despite Mr. Potts' receipt in January 1995 of a
letter of censure in the Ruby Ridge matter, he was named deputy director in May 1995.
According to the report, Mr. Coulson was promoted to agent-in-charge in Baltimore in April
1993 while still a focus of the FBI's internal Ruby Ridge investigation. It said he was
given a cash award of $5,590 in November 1993, although the investigation remained active.
Mr. Coulson was named to lead the FBI's Dallas office in September 1994, the report said,
before recommendations regarding discipline in Ruby Ridge had been completed. He later
received a letter of censure for his role in the standoff.
Mr. Walsh received a cash award of 5 percent of his salary while under investigation by
the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) in the Ruby Ridge
matter, the report said. It said he was named agent-in-charge of the FBI's San Francisco
field office in December 1996 while he was the focus of a separate criminal probe of Ruby
Ridge by U.S. Attorney Michael Stiles in Philadelphia.
According to the report, FBI Director Louis J. Freeh asked the OPR and Mr. Stiles about
the promotion, and the OPR did not object, Mr. Stiles declined comment. The report said a
memo to Attorney General Janet Reno requesting approval for Mr. Walsh's move to San
Francisco did not mention the investigation.
Mr. Harp, now head of the Washington field office, was named agent-in-charge in Cleveland
after OPR began an investigation into the inadequacy of his after-the-fact Ruby Ridge
probe, the report said. It said a memo to Mr. Freeh presenting Mr. Harp's qualifications
did not mention the ongoing probe, although the inspector general's report said Mr. Freeh
was aware of the investigation and its scope.
In addition, the report said, Mr. Harp was given a cash bonus of $8,099 in November 1997
while under investigation in the Ruby Ridge matter and a $14,208 bonus in October 1998
while that inquiry continued and a separate probe began into his role in the receipt of
travel reimbursements by FBI senior executives to attend a 1997 retirement party for Mr.
Potts.
Mr. Walsh and Mr. Harp had been assigned to investigate accusations of misconduct by the
government in the Ruby Ridge matter. The OPR later said they did not take sufficiently
aggressive steps in the probe and avoided uncovering the full truth to protect Mr. Potts
and Mr. Coulson.
The report said Mr. Mathews was promoted to the FBI's Senior Executive Service (SES) in
July 1995 after the OPR had begun its investigation into accusations that a separate
internal Ruby Ridge inquiry he headed was inadequate. It said Mr. Mathews, who served as a
top assistant to Mr. Coulson in Portland, Ore., from 1988 to 1990, was promoted to
agent-in-charge in New Orleans in June 1997 while the OPR investigation continued.
Mr. Mathews was assigned to find out what, if any, disciplinary action should be taken
against FBI personnel involved in the Ruby Ridge incident. His report recommended
discipline for several agents at the scene, but did not contain any recommendations for
discipline for Mr. Potts or Mr. Coulson.
The inspector general's report said Mr. Kahoe got a cash award of $7,126 in November 1993
during the initial Ruby Ridge investigation and was named agent-in-charge in Jacksonville,
Fla., in June 1994 while still under investigation. He pleaded guilty in October 1996 to
obstruction of justice and was sentenced to 18 months in prison.
Mr. Kahoe destroyed a November 1992 after-action report that referred to
"problems" in the FBI's conduct during the Weaver siege. The document had been
sought by federal prosecutors in Idaho, but was never made available.
http://washingtontimes.com/national/20021116-28573828.htm
=====================================================================
(This is an excerpt from a remarkable book by Gerry Spence called "From
Freedom To Slavery, The Rebirth Of Tyranny In America.")
First They Came For The Fascists....
by Gerry Spence
Randy Weaver's wife was dead, shot through the head while she clutched her
child to her breast. His son was shot, twice. First they shot the child's
arm, probably destroyed the arm. The child cried out. Then, as the child
was running they shot him in the back. Randy Weaver himself had been shot
and wounded and Kevin Harris, a kid the Weavers had all but adopted was
dying of a chest wound. The blood hadn't cooled on Ruby Hill before the
national media announced that I had taken the defense of Randy Weaver. Then
all hell broke loose. My sister wrote me decrying my defense of this
"racist". There were letters to the editors in several papers that
expressed their disappointment that I would lend my services to a person
with Weaver's beliefs. And I received a letter from my close friend Alan
Hirschfield, the former chairman of chief executive officer of Columbia
Pictures and Twentieth Century Fox, Imploring me to withdraw.
He Wrote:
"After much thought I decided to write this letter to you. It represents a
very profound concern on my part regarding your decision to represent Randy
Weaver. While I applaud and fully understand your motives in taking such a
case, I nonetheless find this individual defense troubling. It is so
because of the respectability and credibility your involvement imparts to a
cause which I find despicable.
.(....remainder of letter deleted for brevity, but wanted Gerry to not
defend Weaver, as it would support the militant groups......)
The next morning I delivered the following letter by carrier to Mr
Hirschfield
"I cherish your letter. It reminds me once again of our friendship, for
only friends can speak and hear each other in matters so deeply a part of
the soul. And your letter reminds me as well, as we must all be reminded,
of the unspeakable pain every Jew has suffered from the horrors of the
Holocaust. No better evidence of our friendship could be shown than your
intense caring concerning what I do and what I stand for.
I met Randy Weaver in jail on the evening of his surrender. His eyes had no
light in them. He was unshaven and dirty. He was naked except for yellow
plastic prison coveralls, and he was cold. His small feet were clad in
rubber prison sandals. In the stark setting of the prison conference room
he seemed diminutive and fragile. He had spent 11 days and nights in a
standoff against the government and he had lost. His wife was dead. His son
was dead. His friend was near death. Weaver himself had been wounded. He
had lost his freedom. He had lost it all. And now he stood face to face
with a stranger who towered over him and whose words were not words of
comfort. When I spoke, you, Alan, were on my mind.
"My name is Gerry Spence" I began. "I'm the lawyer you've been told about.
Before we begin to talk I want you to understand that I do not share any of
your political or religious beliefs. Many of my dearest friends are Jews.
My daughter is married to a Jew. My sister is married to a black man. She
has adopted a black child. I deplore what the Nazis stand for. If I defend
you I will not defend your political beliefs or your religious beliefs, but
your right as an American citizen to a fair trial." His quiet answer was,
"That is all I ask." Then I motioned him to a red plastic chair and I took
a similar one. And as the guards marched by and from time to time peered
in, he told his story.
Alan, you are a good and fair man. That I know. Were it otherwise we would
not be such friends. Yet it is your pain I hear most clearly--exacerbated,
I know, by the fact that your friend should represent your enemy. Yet what
drew me to this case was my own pain. Let me tell you the facts.
Randy Weaver's principal crime against the government had been his failure
to appear in court on a charge of possessing illegal firearms. The first
crime was not his. He had been entrapped--intentionally, systematically,
patiently, purposefully entrapped--by a federal agent who solicited him to
cut off, contrary to Federal law, the barrels of a couple of shotguns.
Randy Weaver never owned an illegal weapon in his life. He was not engaged
in the manufacture of illegal weapons. The idea of selling an illegal
firearm had never entered his mind until the government agent suggested it
and encouraged him to act illegally. The government knew he needed the
money. He is as poor as an empty cupboard. He had three daughters, a son
and a wife to support. He lived in a small house in the woods without
electricity or running water. Although he is a small, frail man, with tiny,
delicate hands who probably weighs no more than a hundred and twenty
pounds, he made an honest living by chopping firewood and by seasonal work
as a logger.
This man is wrong, his beliefs are wrong. His relationship to mankind is
wrong. He was perhaps legally wrong when he failed to appear and defend
himself in court. But the first wrong was not his. Nor was the first wrong
the government's. The first wrong was ours.
In this country we embrace the myth that we are still a democracy when we
know that we are not a democracy, that we are not free, that the government
does not serve us but subjugates us. Although we give lip service to the
notion of freedom, we know the government is no longer the servant of the
people but, at last has become the people's master. We have stood by like
timid sheep while the wolf killed, first the weak, then the strays, then
those on the outer edges of the flock, until at last the entire flock
belonged to the wolf. We did not care about the weak or about the strays.
they were not a part of the flock. We did not care about those on the outer
edges. They had chosen to be there. But as the wolf worked its way towards
the center of the flock we discovered that we were now on the outer edges.
Now we must look the wolf squarely in the eye. That we did not do so when
the first of us was ripped and torn and eaten was the first wrong. It was
our wrong.
That none of us felt responsible for having lost our freedom has been a
part of an insidious progression. In the beginning the attention of the
flock was directed not to the marauding wolf but to our own deviant members
within the flock. We rejoiced as the wolf destroyed them for they were our
enemies. We were told that the weak lay under the rocks while we faced the
blizzards to rustle our food, and we did not care when the wolf took them.
We argued that they deserved it. When one of our flock faced the wolf alone
it was always eaten. Each of us was afraid of the wolf, but as a flock we
were not afraid. Indeed the wolf cleansed the herd by destroying the weak
and dismembering the aberrant element within. As time went by, strangely,
the herd felt more secure under the rule of the wolf. It believed that by
belonging to this wolf it would remain safe from all the other wolves. But
we were eaten just the same.
No one knows better than children of the Holocaust how the lessons of
history must never be forgotten. Yet Americans, whose battle cry was once,
"Give me liberty or give me death", have sat placidly by as a new king was
crowned. In America a new king was crowned by the shrug of our shoulders
when our neighbors were wrongfully seized. A new king was crowned when we
capitulated to a regime that is no longer sensitive to people, but to non
people--to corporations, to money and to power. The new king was crowned
when we turned our heads as the new king was crowned as we turned our heads
as the poor and the forgotten and the damned were rendered mute and
defenseless, not because they were evil but because, in the scheme of our
lives, they seemed unimportant, not because they were essentially dangerous
but because they were essentially powerless. The new king was crowned when
we cheered the government on as it prosecuted the progeny of our ghettos
and filled our prisons with black men whose first crime was that they were
born in the ghettos. We cheered the new king on as it diluted our right to
be secure in our homes against unlawful searches and to be secure in the
courts against unlawful evidence. We cheered the new king on because we
were told that our sacred rights were but "loopholes" but which our
enemies: the murderers and rapists and thieves and drug dealers, escaped.
We were told that those who fought for our rights, the lawyers, were worse
than the thieves who stole from us in the night, that our juries were
irresponsible and ignorant and ought not to be trusted. We watched with
barely more than a mumble as the legal system that once protected us became
populated with judges who were appointed by the new king. At last the new
king was crowned when we forgot the lessons of history, that:when the
rights of our enemies have been wrested from them, we have lost our own
rights as well, for the same rights serve both citizen and criminal.
When Randy Weaver failed to appear in court because he had lost his trust
in the government we witnessed the fruit of our crime. The government
indeed had no intent to protect his rights. The government had but one
purpose, as it remains today, the disengagement of this citizen from
society. Those who suffered and died in the Holocaust must have exquisitely
understood such illicit motivations of power.
I have said that I was attracted to the case out of my own pain. Let me
tell you the facts: a crack team of trained government marksmen sneaked on
to Randy Weaver's small isolated acreage on a reconnaissance mission
preparatory to a contemplated arrest. They wore camouflage suits and were
heavily armed. They gave Randy no warning of their coming. They came
without a warrant. They never identified themselves.
The Weavers owned 3 dogs, 2 small crossbred collie mutts and a yellow lab,
a big pup a little over a year old whose most potent weapon was his tail
with which he could beat a full grown man to death. The dog, Striker, was a
close member of the Weaver family. Not only was he the companion of the
children, but in winter he pulled the family sled to haul their water
supply from the spring below. When the dogs discovered the intruders they
raised a ruckus, and Randy his friend Kevin, and Randy's 14 year old son
Sam, grabbed their guns and followed the dogs to investigate.
When the government agents were confronted with the barking dog, they did
what men who have been taught to kill do. They shot Striker. The boy,
barely larger than a 10 year old child, heard the dog's yelp, saw the dog
fall dead. and as a 14 year old might, he returned the fire. Then the
government agents shot the child in the arm. He turned and ran. the arm
flopping, and when he did, the officers, still unidentified as such, shot
the child in the back and killed him.
Kevin Harris witnessed the shooting of the dog. Then he saw Sam being shot
as the boy turned and ran. To Kevin there was no alternative. He knew if he
ran these intruders, whoever they were, would kill him as well. In defense
of himself he raised his rifle and shot in the direction of the officer who
had shot and killed the boy. Then while the agents were in disarray, Kevin
retreated to the Weaver cabin.
In the meantime Randy Weaver had been off in another direction and had only
heard the shooting, the dog's yelp and the gunfire that followed. Randy
hollered for his son and shot his shotgun into the air to attract the boy.
"Come on home Sam, Come home."
Over and over he called.
Finally he heard the boy call back "I'm comin' Dad". Those were the last
words he ever heard from his son.
Later that same day, Randy, Kevin, and Vicki Weaver, Randy's wife went down
to where the boy lay and carried his body back to an outbuilding near the
cabin. There they removed the child's clothing and bathed his wounds and
prepared the body. The next evening Weaver's oldest daughter, Sarah,
sixteen, Kevin, and Randy went back to the shed to have a last look at Sam.
When they did, government snipers opened fire. Randy was hit in the
shoulder. The three turned and ran for the house where Vicki, with her 10
month old baby in her arms stood holding the door open. As the 3 entered
the house Vicki was shot and slowly fell to her knees, her head resting on
the floor like one kneeling in prayer. Randy ran up and took the baby that
she clutched, and then he lifted his wife's head. Half her face was blown
away.
Kevin was also hit. Huge areas of muscle in his arm were blown out, and his
lung was punctured in several places. Randy and his 16 year old daughter
stretched the dead mother on the floor of the cabin and covered he with a
blanket where she remained for over 8 days as the siege progressed.
By this time there were officers by the score, troops, armored personnel
carriers, helicopters, radios, televisions, robots, and untold armaments
surrounding the little house. I will not burden you with the misery and
horror the family suffered in this stand-off. I will tell you that finally
Bo Gritz, Randy's former commander in the special forces, came to help in
the negotiations. Gritz told Randy that if he would surrender, Gritz would
guarantee him a fair trial, and before the negotiations were ended, Randy
came to the belief that I would represent him. Although Gritz had contacted
me before I had spoke to Randy, I had only agreed to talk to Randy. But the
accuracy of what was said between Gritz and me and what was hard by Randy
somehow got lost in the horror, and Randy's belief that I would represent
him if he surrendered was in part, his motivation for finally submitting to
arrest.
And so my friend Allan, you can now understand the pain I feel in this
case. It is pain that comes from the realization that we have permitted a
government to act in our name and in our behalf in a criminal fashion. It
is the pain of watching the government as it now attempts to lie about its
criminal complicity in this affair and to cover its crimes by charging
Randy with crimes he did not commit, including murder. It is the pain of
seeing an innocent woman with a child in her arms murdered and innocent
children subjected to these atrocities. Indeed, as a human being I feel
Randy's irrepressible pain and horror and grief.
I also feel your pain, my friend. Yet I know that in the end, if you were
the judge at the trial of Adolph Eichmann, you would have insisted that he
not have ordinary council, but the best council. In the same way, if you
were the judge in Randy's case, and you had a choice, I have no doubt that
despite your own pain you might well have appointed me to defend him. In
the end you must know that the Holocaust must never stand for part
justice,or average justice but for the most noble of ideals--that even the
enemies of the Jews themselves must receive the best justice the system can
provide. If it were otherwise the meaning of the Holocaust would be
accordingly besmirched.
Alan, I agree with your arguments. They are proper and they are true. I
agree that my defense of Randy Weaver may attach a legitimacy and dignity
to his politics and religion. But it may, as well, stand for the
proposition that there are those who don't condone this kind of criminal
action by our government. I view the defense of Randy Waver's case as an
opportunity to address a more vital issue, one that transcends a white
separatist movement or notions of the supremacy of one race over another,
for the ultimate enemy of any people is not the angry hate groups that
fester within, but a government itself that has lost its respect for the
individual. The ultimate enemy of democracy is not the drug dealer or the
crooked politician or the crazed skinhead. The ultimate enemy is the new
king that has become so powerful it can murder its own citizens with
impunity.
To the same extent that Randy Weaver cannot find justice in this country,
we too will be deprived of justice. At last, my defense of Randy Weaver is
a defense of every Jew and every Gentile, for every black and every gay who
loves freedom and deplores tyranny.
Although I understand that it will be easy for my defense of Randy Weaver
to be confused with an endorsement of the politics of the Aryan Nation, my
challenge will be to demonstrate that we can still be a nation where the
rights of the individual, despite his race, color, religion, remain
supreme. If this be not so, then we are all lost. If this is not so, it is
because we have forgotten the lessons of our histories--the history of the
American Revolution as well as the history of the Holocaust.
And so my friend Allan, If I were to withdraw from the defense of Randy
Weaver as you request, I would be required to abandon my belief that this
system has any remaining virtue. I would be more at fault than the federal
government that has murdered these people, for I have not been trained to
murder but to defend. I would be less of a man than my client who had the
courage of his convictions. I would lose all respect for myself. I would be
unable to any longer be your friend, for friendship must always have its
foundation in respect. Therefore as my friend, I ask that you not require
this of me. I ask instead for your prayers, your understanding and your
continued love.
As ever,
Gerry Spence
Jackson Hole, Wyoming
"From Freedom To Slavery, The Rebirth Of Tyranny In America"
by Gerry Spence
$10.95
St. Martin's Press
175 Fifth Ave
NY, NY, 10010 USA
http://www.wco.com/~altaf/fascist.html
Charges dropped in Ruby Ridge case
http://www.apfn.org/apfn/charges.htm
Prosecutor declines to prosecute
FBI sniper in Ruby Ridge case
http://www.apfn.org/apfn/ruby1.htm
Lon Tomohisa Horiuchi
IDAHO v. HORIUCHI
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data2/circs/9th/9830149p.pdf
Friends: About time. Horiuchi should have been prosecuted before he went down to Waco to shoot women and children there.
Jim Hardin
The Freedom Page
http://www.freedompage.wsHoriuchi Fired At Waco -- Cases Found
http://www.apfn.org/apfn/horiuchi.htm
Video
Download Windows Media Player 7
CLICK HERE"Atrocities at Ruby
Ridge"
video: http://www.apfn.org/Movies/rubyridge.wmv
Court: FBI Sharpshooter Can Be Tried
http://www.newsday.com/ap/topnews/ap978.htm
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) 05/05/01 -- A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that an FBI
sharpshooter can be tried for manslaughter in the slaying of white
separatist Randy Weaver's wife during the 1992 Ruby Ridge standoff in
Idaho.
In a case testing whether federal agents are immune to state prosecution,
the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals cleared the way for Idaho prosecutors
to charge agent Lon T. Horiuchi in the death of Vicki Weaver, 42. The
federal government declined to prosecute the agent.
''When federal officers violate the Constitution, either through
malice or excessive zeal, they can be held accountable for violating
the state's criminal laws,'' Judge Alex Kozinski wrote in the ruling.
The court agreed with Boundary County, Idaho, attorney Ramsey Clark, a
former U.S. attorney general who argued in December that immunity
cannot be granted until there's a trial to determine whether Horiuchi
acted unlawfully.
''When federal law enforcement agents carry out their responsibilities,
they can cause destruction of property, loss of freedom, and as in this
case, loss of life -- all which might violate the state's criminal laws,''
Kozinski said.
There was no immediate comment from Clark.
The standoff in northern Idaho prompted a nationwide debate on the use
of force by federal agencies. Ruby Ridge, where the Weaver family lived,
has become synonymous with high-profile clashes, including the Branch
Davidian siege near Waco, Texas, the Freemen standoff and the Oklahoma
City bombing.
The standoff began after federal agents tried to arrest Randy Weaver
for failing to appear in court to face charges of selling two illegal
sawed-off shotguns.
The cabin had been under surveillance for several months when the violence
egan with the deaths of Deputy U.S. Marshal William Degan, Weaver's
14-year-old son, Samuel, and the Weaver family dog, Striker.
During the standoff, Horiuchi shot and killed Weaver's wife and wounded
family friend Kevin Harris. Witnesses said the sharpshooter fired as
Vicki Weaver held open the cabin door, her 10-month-old baby in her
arms, to let her husband, their daughter and Harris inside.
Horiuchi has said he didn't see Vicki Weaver when he fired at Harris,
who was armed and was ducking inside the cabin. He also said he fired
to protect a government helicopter overhead.
A wounded Harris later surrendered, as did Weaver. Both men were acquitted
of murder, conspiracy and other federal charges. Weaver was convicted
of failing to appear for trial on the firearms charge.
The Justice Department last summer settled the last civil lawsuit
stemming from the standoff. The government admitted no wrongdoing,
but paid Harris $380,000 to drop his $10 million civil damage suit.
In 1995, the government paid Weaver and his three surviving children
$3.1 million for the killings of Weaver's wife and son.
Court case, Idaho vs. Horiuchi, 98-30149:
http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/From the drawing made by Horiuchi during an interview with the FBI at a hotel, on hotel stationery, he draws in no closed curtains at all. In the lower right-hand corner of the window we see two partial heads
From Freedom to Slavery, by Gerry Spence
Written by Randy Weaver's defense attorney, the second chapter of the paperback edition is one of the best accounts of what happened at Ruby Ridge. With Gerry Spence's permission, it is reproduced here. http://www.ruby-ridge.com/gspence.htm
==================================================
Tuesday June 5 4:27 PM ET
Court: FBI Sharpshooter Can Be Tried
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - A federal appeals court ruled
Tuesday that an FBI (news - web sites) sharpshooter
can be tried for manslaughter in the slaying of the
wife of white separatist Randy Weaver during the 1992
Ruby Ridge standoff in Idaho.
In a case testing whether federal agents are immune to
state prosecution, an 11-judge panel of the 9th U.S.
Circuit Court of Appeals (news - web sites) cleared
the way for Idaho prosecutors to charge agent Lon T.
Horiuchi for the death of Vicki Weaver.
The federal government declined to prosecute the agent.
The appeals court reversed a three-judge panel from
the same circuit, disagreeing with arguments that it
didn't matter whether Weaver's death was the result of
excessive force.
Randy Weaver Family Christian Homeschoolers Last Days
Kevin (friend of Weavers)
Court weighs bid to try FBI agent:
Saturday, 23-Dec-00 14:03:50
24.14.28.77 writes:
Court weighs bid to try FBI agent: He
killed separatist's wife at Ruby Ridge
By Claire Cooper
Bee Legal Affairs Writer
(Published Dec. 21, 2000)
SAN FRANCISCO -- An 11-member panel of federal circuit judges gave
no indication Wednesday whether it will allow Idaho to prosecute an FBI
sharpshooter who killed a woman during the 1992 Ruby Ridge standoff.
As two of the nation's top legal talents presented sometimes emotional oral
arguments, the judges of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals struggled with
concepts of official immunity and federal supremacy.
Arguing on the side of Idaho officials, former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey
Clark called FBI agent Lon T. Horiuchi's killing of Vicki Weaver a "summary
execution," a classic case of excessive force by police that's well within the
scope of the state courts to prosecute.
Seth Waxman, the U.S. solicitor general, countered that the freedom of
federal agents to act in crises is "a principle of surpassing importance." He
argued, "State prosecution of federal officers is terribly chilling in all but
extreme cases, and this is not one of them."
The case grew out of the fatal shooting of Weaver, the wife of separatist
leader Randy Weaver, as she stood holding her baby during the second week
of a standoff at the couple's Idaho cabin. Federal agents were attempting to
serve a weapons trafficking warrant. Horiuchi opened fire to keep the
Weavers' friend, Kevin Harris, from taking cover in the cabin.
Local prosecutors in Boundary County, Idaho, charged Horiuchi with
involuntary manslaughter after the U.S. Department of Justice announced it
would not prosecute him or his superiors.
A judge in Idaho threw out the case. A three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit
upheld that action last June, saying Horiuchi made "an objectively reasonable
decision" to shoot. But the full 9th Circuit sent the case to an 11-judge panel
for a fresh look.
During Wednesday's arguments, only one judge, Andrew Kleinfeld of
Fairbanks, Alaska, appeared firmly to take Idaho's side, saying Horiuchi
should not be able to escape prosecution by claiming he was following orders.
But even Judge Alex Kozinski of Pasadena, who dissented strongly from the
ruling in June, was hard to read, challenging the lawyers on both sides.
"It is troubling," he said, to let 50 states "trump" the authority of federal agents by applying their criminal laws.
Judge Pamela Rymer, also of Pasadena, said Horiuchi could not be
prosecuted if he had a "reasonable belief" that the shooting was necessary to
protect federal officers who were in danger.
Clark responded that the facts did not support any such belief, and much of
the oral argument session was devoted to questions and answers about
circumstances surrounding the shooting.
There is no deadline for the court's decision.
SOURCE:
http://www.capitolalert.com/news/capalert08.html
