Page 8A
OFF PAGE ONE
East Oregonian
Tuesday, January 19, 2016
HERMISTON: ‘They suffered injustice
and indignity so we could sit here today’
Continued from 1A
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Ron Martin sings freedom songs at the Great Pacific
Wine and Coffee Co. on Monday in Pendleton.
PENDLETON: ‘One of
the best ways for people
to come together is music’
Continued from 1A
“Our lives begin the end
the day we become silent
about things that matter,”
Young quoted.
“Tonight,” Young said,
“we’re not going to be
silent.”
More than a dozen musi-
cians divided up the night,
sharing freedom songs
written around the time
of King’s death. Georgina
Johnson, a local soul and
gospel singer, belted out
“We Shall Not be Moved”
with Dan Haug who
strummed his guitar and
Margaret Mayer punctu-
ated the song by thumping
her guitar’s wooden body
in rhythm.
“One of the best ways
for people to come together
is music,” said Mayer,
who teaches music at Blue
Mountain
Community
College.
Johnson welcomed her
chance to honor King.
“He was the one
who brought everyone
together,” Johnson said.
“His steps made history for
others. He wanted peace.
He wanted unity.”
Melissa
Woodbury
shared memories of being
caught up in King’s orb
as she helped plan for
the Poor People’s March
on Washington in 1968.
The rally to get economic
justice for poor Americans
was to be headed by King,
but an assassin’s bullet
cut him down one month
prior. Woodbury and her
husband Ron lived in D.C.
and had volunteered with
the national organizing
committee to do some of
the nuts-and-bolts work.
“It
was
nothing
romantic,” she said. “It
was, where do we put the
porta-potties and where
should the buses park?”
On the day of King’s
death a neighbor popped
his head in the door and
gave them the devastating
news.
“They got King,” he
told the couple.
Riots broke out as the
news shot around the city.
“We looked out and
saw smoke rising in north-
east Washington as the
¿res started,” Woodbury
recalled.
The Woodburys had
also lived in another place
King led rallies — St.
Augustine, Florida. It was
in St. Augustine where
black protesters staged a
sit-in at the lunch counter at
Woolworth’s. King himself
was arrested in the city in
1964 during a protest.
“It was in St. Augus-
tine where MLK led
marches and had to sleep
in a different house every
night,” Woodbury said.
“One house where he was
thought to be was burned
to the ground. Another
had bullet holes. He got up
every day knowing it might
be his last.”
The end came on
April 4, 1968. King was
fatally shot as he stood
on a balcony at a motel in
Memphis, Tennessee.
“He was able to carry
on through it all his philos-
ophy of non-violence and
passive resistance,” Wood-
bury said. “His courage and
his dedication change this
country.”
She raised a glass and
asked everyone else to do
the same.
“To Dr. King.”
From the back of the
room came a loud, “Amen.”
———
Contact Kathy Aney at
kaney@eastoregonian.com
or call 541-966-0810.
COUNTY: Board will
consider revising contract
with Susan Bower
Continued from 1A
the meeting also will hold
the ¿rst hearing to allow
public comments on the
proposal to form Umatilla
County Fire District No. 1,
a merger of the Hermiston
and 6tan¿eld ¿re districts.
The board plans to hold
the ¿nal public hearing on
the proposal Wednesday,
Feb. 17 at 9 a.m., also at the
county courthouse, Pend-
leton. After that, the board
can approve the matter for
the voting ballot.
And among other issues,
the board will consider
approving the ¿nal recom-
mendation to the Bureau of
Land Management for the
Boardman to Hemingway
Transmission Line Project.
You can learn more about
that here.
And the board will
consider revising its contact
with Susan Bower, who has
provided professional and
human resource develop-
ment to the county.
According to agree-
ment, the county would
pay her $4,783.33 per
month for professional and
human resource program-
ming from Jan. 1, 2016 to
June 30, 2017, and also
pay her $2,050 per month
during the same period as
an economic development
consultant.
You can view the full
meeting agenda here:
www.co.umatilla.or.us.
———
Contact Phil Wright at
pwright@eastoregonian.
com or 541-966-0833.
SUBMIT COMMUNITY NEWS
Submit information to: community@eastoregonian.com or drop
off to the attention of Tammy Malgesini at 333 E. Main St.,
Hermiston or Renee Struthers at 211 S.E. Byers Ave., Pendle-
ton. Call 541-564-4539 or 541-966-0818 with questions.
at that.”
Pressing the theme of
contributing one’s best to the
world in every circumstance,
Rome quoted King:
“If a man is called to be
a street sweeper, he should
sweep streets even as a
Michaelangelo painted, or
Beethoven composed music
or Shakespeare wrote poetry.
He should sweep streets
so well that all the hosts of
heaven and earth will pause
to say, ‘Here lived a great
street sweeper who did his
job well.’”
She urged everyone in
attendance to follow King’s
words by doing their best to
build up their own commu-
nity.
Other
speakers
at
Monday’s ceremony also
spoke of King’s devotion to
making the world a better
place.
Jody Frost said she was
a little girl growing up in
Hermiston during the civil
rights movement. At the time
she didn’t really understand
what all of the fuss was
about, she said, but today she
can appreciate the sacri¿ces
King and his contemporaries
made so that when she
marched down the streets of
Hermiston on Monday with
people of various races she
didn’t have to wonder if she
was going to be shot, beaten
or spit upon.
“We reap the bene¿ts
today,” she said. “They
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
The “Star-Spangled Banner” is sung during a celebration of Martin Luther King Jr.
Day on Monday in Hermiston.
suffered injustice and indig-
nity so we could sit here
today.”
Robert Davis said he was
glad to see so many children
participate in the peace walk
and ceremony, learning the
lessons of tolerance so that
history did not repeat itself.
“We have a brighter future
with the youth involved,” he
said.
The event was sponsored
by Hermiston’s Black Inter-
national Awareness Club,
which began in 1999.
———
Contact Jade McDowell
at jmcdowell@eastorego-
nian.com or 541-564-4536.
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Rose Johnsongale of Umatilla leads a group of march-
ers in singing “Lift Every Voice and Sing” by James W.
Johnson on Monday before beginning a march to hon-
or Martin Luther King Jr. Day in Hermiston.
STANDOFF: Dwight Hammond was sentenced to three months in prison
Continued from 1A
Did prosecutors renege on a
deal not to appeal the original
sentence?
Whether you consider the
Hammonds heroes or crim-
inals, their collision with the
federal justice system offers
a cautionary tale of federal
power and the mounting
controversy over mandatory
minimum sentences. A
national groundswell of
critics, including President
Barack Obama and even
former Attorney General Eric
Holder, has surfaced in recent
years claiming mandatory
minimums lead to unduly
harsh sentences that have
disproportionately impacted
young black and Latino men.
In this case, the sentences
went to the two Oregon
ranchers, Dwight, age 74 and
Steven, age 49. Even Frank
Papagni Jr., the assistant
U.S. Attorney leading the
Hammond
prosecution,
repeatedly voiced misgiv-
ings about the severity of a
¿ve-year sentence. But once
the trial began, he offered
no concessions, nor did his
colleagues who handled the
subsequent appeal.
“If they had qualms, I’m
disappointed they fought so
hard for ¿ve years, all the
way to the Supreme Court,”
said Jacon Taylor, Steven
Hammond’s nephew, who
testi¿ed at the trial. “In the
end, the result was devas-
tating to the Hammonds.”
A prosecutors’
weapons
Two
decades
of
mounting ill will between
the Hammonds and federal
bureaucrats over how best to
manage their adjacent range-
land erupted into something
far more serious in June 2010.
Federal prosecutors charged
the ranchers with multiple
counts of arson, conspiracy
and other charges.
Prosecutors chose to ¿le a
speci¿c type of arson under
a 1996 statute passed by
Congress in the wake of the
Oklahoma City bombing.
The Antiterrorism and Effec-
tive Death Penalty Act gave
law enforcement and govern-
ment lawyers a panoply of
new tools to ¿ght terrorism,
including a tough new ¿ve-
year mandatory minimum
sentence for arson.
Prosecutors had other
charging options that carried
much lighter penalties.
Another statute — 18 U.S.
Code 1855 — prohibits
setting ablaze “any timber,
underbrush, or grass” in
the public domain. The
Hammonds could have gotten
off with as little as probation
and ¿nes if convicted.
“The real decision point
happened at the charging
phase — that’s what brought
with it the ¿ve year manda-
tory minimum,” said Kevin
Sali, a Portland criminal
defense attorney.
“Look
at the statute’s legislative
history. Clearly, this was
intended primarily to ¿ght
terrorism. You won’t see any
mention of ranchers burning
brush.”
The U.S. Attorney’s
of¿ce in Portland declined
to comment on its charging
decision.
The Justice Department’s
own manual is ambivalent.
It calls for prosecutors to
seek “the most serious
offense” that carries with it
the maximum penalty. But
the manual also urges prose-
cutors to ensure the sentence
is “proportional to the seri-
ousness of the defendant’s
conduct.”
Per
Olson,
another
prominent Portland criminal
defense attorney, said it’s
become commonplace for
prosecutors to use the threat
of a stricter sentence as a
negotiating tool. “Their
ability to use those manda-
tory minimums to coerce
someone into pleading to
something is quite powerful,”
Olson said. “Obviously, the
Hammonds didn’t bite. They
wouldn’t plead.”
Case goes to trial
The Hammonds had the
¿nancial wherewithal to hire
top-Àight criminal defense
lawyers — Larry Matasar
and the late Marc Blackman.
The two sides were soon
talking about a deal.
Kelly
Zusman,
an
assistant U.S. Attorney
in Portland who handled
the subsequent Hammond
appeal, said the characteri-
zation of the government as
too stiff necked to negotiate
is simply wrong. Before the
trial got under way, she said,
prosecutors offered to reduce
the charges that would have
likely reduced the prison term
to well below ¿ve years.
“The government made
offers to these guys,” Zusman
said. “They could have
pleaded to lesser offenses.
But they had to give some-
thing up. Their position was:
take it to trial. We’re going
to win. We haven’t done
anything wrong.”
Eight days into the trial, it
was clear the jury disagreed.
Near midnight on June 21,
jurors sent a note to Hogan
saying they had rejected
some of the claims against
the Hammonds and were
hopelessly split on most of
the others. But they were
unanimous in agreeing the
ranchers were guilty of two
counts of arson.
Hogan then did what he
has become famous for in
Oregon legal circles: He
brokered a deal.
He convinced the parties
to accept the guilty verdict
on the two arson counts and
throw out the rest of the
charges. The Hammonds
agreed to give up their appeal
rights, according to court
documents. As far as the
Hammonds were concerned,
they and the government
had agreed to a permanent
cease¿re that would put the
¿nal sentencing decision in
Hogan’s hands.
Papagni, the prosecutor,
accepted the partial verdict,
according to court docu-
ments. But as events would
soon show, the Hammonds
and the government had
vastly different ideas about
the ¿ne points of their 11th
hour accord.
Hogan’s bombshell
The sentencing was
originally scheduled for
December 2012. But Hogan
rescheduled it to Oct. 30.
After nearly four decades on
the bench, he was retiring
on Oct. 31. He wanted the
Hammond sentencing to be
his last of¿cial act.
By
the
prosecutors’
reckoning, federal guidelines
called for a 33- to 41-month
sentence
for
Steven
Hammond and six months or
less for his father. But in this
case, the ¿ve-year manda-
tory minimum trumped the
normal sentencing guide-
lines.
Papagni clearly was
uncomfortable with the
severity of the sentence the
government demanded.
“Perhaps the best argu-
ment, Judge, the defendants
have in this case is the
proportionality of what they
did to what their sentence is,”
Papagni said at the sentencing
hearing. “Perhaps that’s the
most troubling for the court.
It is for the prosecutor who
tried the case. That being
said, I have done my job as I
see it.”
True to form, Hogan’s
parting shot was memorable.
Five years was out of line, he
ruled, a violation of the Eighth
Amendment ban on cruel and
unusual punishment.
“I will impose a sentence
that I believe is defensible
under the law but also one
that is defensible to my
conscience,” he said. “I
am not going to apply the
mandatory minimum (which)
would result in a sentence
grossly disproportionate to
the severity of the offenses
here.”
Instead, Hogan sentenced
Steven Hammond, then 46,
to a year and a day in prison
and Dwight Hammond, then
70, to just three months.
Hogan took a jab at
the prosecutors, saying
controlled burns in the
“wilderness” of the Eastern
Oregon desert was not the
kind of arson Congress had
in mind when it ramped up
penalties for arson as part of
the antiterrorism statute.
Furious Justice Depart-
ment of¿cials vowed to
appeal. Defense lawyers
protested, reminding the
government they had waived
their right to appeal. The
government denied it had
ever made such a pledge and
charged ahead.
February 10 th , 2016 - Echo, Oregon
AUCTIONEER:
C.D. “Butch” Booker
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