Hammond arson case
| Date | 2012 |
|---|---|
| Location | Harney County, Oregon |
| Cause | Arson |
| Arrest(s) | Dwight Lincoln Hammond, Jr. Steven Dwight Hammond |
The Hammond arson case was a court case culminating from 20-year-long legal disputes between Harney County, Oregon ranchers Dwight Lincoln Hammond, Jr., 73; his son Steven Dwight Hammond, 46; and federal officials. In 2012, both Hammonds were charged with several counts in relation to two fires in 2001 and 2006, and eventually convicted of two counts of arson on federal land. They were sentenced to time in jail, which they served. In 2015, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit vacated these sentences because they were shorter than the statutory mandatory minimum. The Ninth Circuit remanded to the district court for resentencing. The district court subsequently re-sentenced both Hammonds to the mandatory minimum of five years in prison, with credit for time served.
By late 2015, the Hammond case had attracted the attention of Ammon and Ryan Bundy, who planned a protest against the re-sentencing, though the Hammonds rejected their assistance. However, the protest still went into effect on January 2, 2016, and resulted in the Bundys and associates staging a 40-day armed occupation of the headquarters area of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.
Harney County is a rural county in eastern Oregon. The county seat is the city of Burns. Although it is one of the largest counties by area in the United States, its population is only about 7,700, and cattle outnumber people 14-to-1. About 75 percent of the county's area is federal land, variously managed by the United States Bureau of Reclamation (USBR), the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), and the United States Forest Service (USFS). Besides ranching and farming, forestry and manufacturing are important industries in the county.
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