After a combined seven years in prison, Dwight and Steven Hammond have finally returned home.
On July 10, President Donald Trump signed Executive Grants of Clemency—better known as full pardons—for the father and son pair. They arrived home to Burns, OR, the morning of July 11.
“Our family is grateful to the president and all who worked to make this possible, and to bring this about,” read the family’s official July 10 statement in reaction to the pardons, put out by their lawyer, Morgan Philpot, managing attorney at JM Philpot Law.
In deference to the family’s privacy in celebrating Dwight and Steven’s return, WLJ did not reach out directly to the Hammonds last week. We will reach out to the Hammond family in the near future for continuing coverage of the story.
“From long before our family’s legal challenges, through the trial in 2012, the resentencing and return to federal prison in 2016, and the last several years while Dwight and Steven were in federal prison, Dwight and Steven and our family have done all we can do to demonstrate faith in our country and in principles of decency, fairness and justice,” continued the family’s statement.
The pardons had been some time in coming. Though efforts to seek the Hammonds’ release from prison began years ago, the most recent concerted effort began in January 2018.
On Jan. 6, 2018, agricultural nonprofit Protect the Harvest circulated an appeal to Trump to “review the pattern of persecution, and selective and malicious prosecution” of the Hammonds. On May 19, 2018, the group created a White House petition to pardon the pair.
Though the petition fell well short of the necessary 100,000 signatures necessary to ensure a response within 60 days, Trump’s pardons came within the timeframe nonetheless.
“Justice is overdue for Dwight and Steven Hammond, both of whom are entirely deserving of these Grants of Executive Clemency,” the president wrote.
History of the case
The events leading up to the two-part “Hammond case” began almost two decades ago.
According to the court documents, Dwight and Steven Hammond set a fire on their own land in September 2001. This fire spread to adjoining federal land that was part of their grazing allotment, burning 139 acres. The Hammonds asserted this burn was to control invasive weeds on their property, a standard range management practice. The government plaintiffs asserted that the 2001 fire was intentionally set, with early assertions including accusations of conspiracy to conceal evidence of deer poaching by the Hammonds.
Later, in August 2006, Steven Hammond conducted a fire on their private property that spread onto roughly one acre of adjoining federal land. The Hammonds asserted that the fire was a backburn to prevent a lightning-started wildfire from threatening their winter pastures. Government plaintiffs asserted there was a burn ban in effect at the time and Steven Hammond did not seek a waiver.
In 2010, the pair were indicted by the government on 19 counts including arson and conspiracy covering numerous range fires set by the Hammonds that had spilled out onto federal land dating back to 1982. By mid-May 2012, less than a month before the trial, the government submitted an updated indictment focused on only nine charges and four fires, including the two outlined above.
The 2012 jury trial eventually found both Dwight and Steven Hammond guilty of one count of damaging government property by fire—violating 18 U.S.C. § 844(f )(1) established by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996—related to the 2001 fire, and found Steven additionally guilty of one count in the case of the 2006 fire.
All other charges were either acquitted or the jury was unable to reach a verdict on them, including the conspiracy charges. According to the Supreme Court’s 2013 summary of the case, jurors found neither fire had caused more than $1,000 in damages.
In late October 2012, District Judge Michael Hogan sentenced the two men to less than the mandatory minimum that would have applied given the charges of which they were found guilty.
“I am not going to apply the mandatory minimum and because, to me, to do so under the Eighth Amendment would result in a sentence which is grossly disproportionate to the severity of the offenses here,” he said, adding later that the five-year minimum prison terms would “shock the conscience.”
Instead, Hogan sentenced Dwight Hammond to three months in prison, and Steven Hammond to a year and a day.
The government appealed the decision however, arguing that Hogan did not have the authority to give less than the mandatory minimum sentence. The Ninth Circuit Court found the sentences were illegal and overturned them, remanding sentencing back to the lower court in 2015. Then-District Judge Ann Aiken eventually sentenced the Hammonds to return to prison to serve the required five years, accounting for time already served. Though Steven was found guilty on two charges, Aiken ruled that he could serve both terms concurrently.
The pair returned to prison on Jan. 4, 2016. The Hammonds’ required return to prison in part inspired Ammon Bundy and others to take over the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in protest, something the Hammonds had not condoned or requested.
Reception and the future
[inline_image file=”b814aa9235b7c14040ab27c88e029146.jpg” caption=”Earlyna Hammond (center left), wife of Steven Hammond, was all smiles with two of her children and Ellington Peek (center right) during the Western Video Market Sale, July 11, in Reno, NV, on the day her husband returned home after years in prison.”]
Ranching groups welcomed the news of the Hammonds’ pardon, collectively characterizing it as a correction on injustice.
“The Hammonds were forced to suffer from grave injustice for far too long, and the entire ranching community is relieved that they will be reunited with their families,” said Ethan Lane, Executive Director of the Public Lands Council and NCBA Federal Lands in a statement.
“No rancher undertaking normal agricultural practices should fear spending years in jail at the hands of the federal government.”
“We are thankful for President Trump’s pardon of Dwight and Steven Hammond,” commented Bill Bullard, CEO of R-CALF, in the group’s response to the pardon.
“Their lengthy incarceration was viewed by many in the cattle industry, including us, as unjust and unwarranted.”
While celebrated, the pardon casts some uncertainty on the future. During the long-running case, the BLM did not renew the Hammonds’ grazing permits.
“[The Hammonds] want their permits back to access and graze, and we’re not sure what’s going to happen with that,” Philpot told WLJ briefly on Thursday afternoon.
“Up to this point in time we’re not sure what the BLM is going to do in response to this pardon—if it will have any impact at all—but they are waiting for what the reactions of the BLM will be to determine what their next step will be.”
Philpot called the involvement with the BLM on the topic of the grazing permits “very lengthy administrative process,” and that the Hammonds want to “just have their rights over their land back.”
Look for continued coverage of this story in the coming weeks. — Kerry Halladay, WLJ editor
“No rancher undertaking normal agricultural practices should fear spending years in jail at the hands of the federal government.” — Ethan Lane
