Phil Lyman was just awarded Utah's "2015 County Commissioner of the Year" by the Utah Association of Counties. To be so honored Commissioner Lyman (R San Juan County) only needed to organize an illegal gathering/armed protest on public lands, to protest legitimate policies of the BLM respecting said lands (protection of Indian ruins, preservation of wilderness, etc.). For his efforts, Commissioner Lyman was charged with federal criminal law violations, tried, and convicted. He is presently awaiting sentencing but, as of now, three separate U.S. District Court Judges have disqualified themselves from the actual sentencing. For "familiarity" (anyone ever saying that Utah Mormon culture is not inbred seems to be losing that particular argument at this point.)
For context, Commissioner Lyman gave his personal one finger salute to the rest of us not long after Cliven Bundy proved (conclusively, as near as I can tell) that any extreme right winger with a posse and fully automatic weapons, at this point, can tell the federal government to fuck off when locals decide to assert authority over public lands. Bundy has been out of the news enough lately so that one does wonder if there has been some behind the scenes action in his case. But for all public purposes, a precedent was set that cannot but continue to haunt this country until something at least vaguely approaching a just resolution is able to replace the cancerous public perception that was and is part of our societal experience.
Tim DeChristopher, of "Bidder 70" fame, ran afoul of the Phil Lyman type good old boys down in the same part of rural Utah where Lyman caught his criminal conviction. DeChristopher, of course, came down on the left side of that disagreement, so the only appropriate disposition was charge, trial, conviction, and imprisonment. And that case did progress right smartly from start to finish.
With Lyman, he committed his crime in front of federal law enforcement authorites in May of 2014, and it still took almost exactly a year before he was convicted after a jury trial. Next, as things stand now, his sentencing hearing is scheduled for December 18. And as desperately as all of us need to have this case send at least the same message of fair, open, and equal justice that the DeChristopher did, the last thing that smart money would do would be to bet on it.
So, anyway, Utah does have its peculiarities. For instance, our right wing legislature has created any entity called "Utah's Constitutional Defense Council" and funded it fairly generously. I mean, the whole purpose here is to pay for cases against the big, bad federal government (as opposed to, say like, paying assistance to persons actually in need, or even, god forbid, education). But even as hard as the legislature tried to give $100,000 of that budget to Lyman for legal fees, they did cool down some when the AGs office gave them a 100% iron clad guarantee that they would be in violation if they did so.
I mean, whoever heard of not being able to give government money to one of your cronies? And then what happened next, right there in the legislative chamber, I'm sure, resulted only from the emotion of pure outrage at seeing a fellow patriot suffering so unjustly. Apparently someone just blurted out "well maybe we should take up a collection", and Governor Herbert (certainly not because he faces an opponent from the extreme right not too far down the road) responded "well, I have an extra $10,000 in my campaign account, let's start with that", and the feeding frenzy was on.
(This could well seem anticlimactic, bit it could also be a fitting conclusion to this particular tale of bravery/woe to note that Lyman had earlier tried to get a public defender appointed, only to have it ruled that being very well to do, and with a substantial income, he just didn't qualify. Oh, and of course, he has never stepped down from his seat on the San Juan County Commission.)