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Originally Posted by dyna mo
If I recall they were using blm land for grazing their cattle with no fees, then there were fees, which went unpaid.
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Depends on which side you listen to on that. The cattle trails that were in use date back to the late 1800's. The wildlife refuge was established in the 1920's.
There was a lot of rejection of the Feds grabbing the land when it occurred and there were problems between the local ranchers and the feds for decades.
There was a lot of bullshit in the trial, stuff that could not be proven effectively. The big one was that the Hammonds were accused of setting a fire to cover the fact that they were illegally taking deer. One of their relatives testified against them regarding that. They were also accused of another fire where they set illegal backfires and put firefighters in danger.
Proof of all that was sketchy at best. They were only convicted of the one charge of arson so that is really all that is in question regarding the pardon, imho and in that matter the resentencing should not have occurred.
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