Judge Orders Bundys, Other Defendants to Nevada

Federal Judge Anna Brown has ordered six defendants in the case stemming from the armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge to be sent to Nevada to be arraigned on charges stemming from the 2014 standoff at Bunkerville.

The order came after federal prosecutors in the case against Ammon Bundy, his brother Ryan and four others dropped their objections to them being sent out of state.

The five are charged in separate indictments: one in Oregon related to the occupation of the refuge and the other stemming from the 2014 armed standoff with federal agents who had confronted the father of the Bundys, Cliven.

That standoff, at Bunkerville, involved some 60 people and resulted in an indictment last month.

Prosecutors in the Nevada case want the five defendants brought there so they could be arraigned.

They obtained a court order that would have sent the five there and held "until released and discharged" by that court.

The lawyer for Ryan Payne, public defender Lisa Hay, went to spirt seeking an emergency order blocking the move.

She argued there are several problems with that order, not the least of which is that kind of order "cannot be used by one federal district court to remove a pretrial detainee from another federal district court."

Then there are other issues like it would violate his Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights.

Hay writes that the U.S. Attorney in Oregon does not oppose her motion and states they would not be opposed to helping their counterparts in Nevada arraign Payne by videoconference.

In court papers filed late Monday, prosecutors wrote that while "the government did not originally object to the defense motion," that objection was based on logistics, saying "it would have been impractical to have the defendants transported from Oregon to Nevada within one day."

They now say they are dropping their objections and ask the court to work with their Nevada counterparts to arrange for the arraignment of the five on the other charges "in the most efficient way possible."

That would include the possibility of video arraignments done from Portland.

Judge Brown wants the five transported on April 14 and then brought back to Oregon.