The federal government is preparing for a September trial against Ammon and Ryan Bundy as well as nearly two dozen others in the Malheur Refuge standoff case. Defense lawyers, however, claim they are feeling the pinch, with just a few months to wade through thousands of photographs and hours of video footage.
According to a report from the Oregonian, defense lawyers say they’ve received “6,000 hours of video, more than 13,000 photographs, up to 250,000 pages of Facebook account information and more than 40,000 pages of FBI reports.”
At a regular status hearing on the case, Assistant U.S. Attorney Ethan Knight revealed it may take nearly a month for the federal government to present its case against the defendants, the Oregonian reported. The defense argued that it was overwhelmed by the volume of discovery material.
Ammon Bundy’s new lawyer, Marcus Mumford, said that he was still trying to “get up to speed.”
“I’m pushing us all hard because I respect the right asserted by the parties to a speedy trial and a fair trial,” U.S. District Judge Anna Brown said during a monthly status hearing according to the Oregonian. “Just because the record includes a lot of information, doesn’t mean it can’t be done.”
According to the Oregonian, the process to find and select a jury for the trial has already begun. Trial is set to begin in September.
