Audubon Society: Statement on Armed Bundy Terrorists' Malheur Occupation

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54. How it got screwed up?

That would be the trial judge, who screwed that pooch!

Under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, which increased the penalties for arson committed against federal property, the mandatory minimum punishment for such crimes was upped to five years in federal prison. The law, which was passed in the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing, struck the judge presiding over the sentencing as too harsh — and off-base in this instance.

"It just would not be — would not meet any idea I have of justice, proportionality," U.S. District Judge Michael R. Hogan said at the sentencing. "I am not supposed to use the word 'fairness' in criminal law. I know that I had a criminal law professor a long time ago yell at me for doing that. And I don't do that.

"But this — it would be a sentence which would shock the conscience to me."

At the time, Hogan sentenced Dwight Hammond Jr. to three months of prison, and Steven Hammond to a year and one day. The federal government wanted the full five years, appealing the shorter sentences and eventually winning that appeal in 2014.