Freemen Continue Struggle In Court Contrariness Includes No Item Too Small To Argue About
They denied their own names. They refused to let any court-appointed “Bar Association” lawyer defend them. They proclaimed the Bible their only law, stared at the judge as if he came from another planet and objected to the very fact of their arrests.
The last freemen may have surrendered peacefully to federal agents Thursday night, but in their first court appearance Friday, 14 members of the anti-government group signaled clearly that they plan to go to trial kicking and screaming every step of the way.
When the federal magistrate asked one group member, Rodney Skurdal, his name, saying he just wanted to check that he was the right person, Skurdal bridled: “I object to your calling me a person, your honor.”
When the magistrate asked another member, Dana Landers, a similar question, she reeled off: “I am a Christian. My flag is red, white and blue, it’s an American flag. The holy Scriptures are my law. I’m not familiar with your tribunals.”
As if parroting a prescribed text, the 14 freemen members one after another demanded their right to “effective counsel,” meaning that they thought they should be able to choose their own lawyers but that the court should pay for them.
Most objected to how their names were printed in the charges, apparently because of the capital letters, leading to strange spelling-bee moments like the one when Dale Jacobi, a former Canadian policeman, insisted that his name should be written “Capital D, small A, small L, small E, capital J, small A, small C, small O, small B, small I.” Almost all the others went through similar orthographic exercises.
Their contrariness was enough to try the patience of Robert M. Holter, a visiting magistrate whose manner was kindly, but who reached a point where he routinely cut off each group member, saying, “I do the talking here.”
The preliminary appearances in federal court in Billings served only to allow the freemen members to get acquainted with the charges against them, which range from weapons violations to fraud and threatening federal officials. They were allowed to state whether they wanted a court-appointed lawyer and received dates for their next appearances. Most will have their bail hearings June 18, arraignments June 20 and additional hearings June 21.
Sherry Matteucci, the U.S. attorney handling the case, said five of the 14 were facing charges directly related to their 81-day standoff with federal agents. Two women who were among the 16 who surrendered Thursday night but face no charges had been released, she said.
The court proceedings also allowed for the first close-up glimpse of the hard-line nucleus of the group since they closed themselves away on a 960-acre ranch in the rough plains near Jordan, Mont., 82 days ago.
They appeared a hodgepodge bunch, from Emmett and Ralph Clark, stubby, elderly men, to young Casey Clark, a fresh-faced 21-yearold who looked so boyish the judge asked him how old he was, apparently worried he might be a minor.
Rodney Skurdal, a former Marine and the freemen compound’s security chief, is brawny, blond and bearded; Cornelius Veldhuizen, who refused to pronounce his name for the judge, has the scrawny look of a long-suffering farmer.
The two women, though both fortyish and with long shag haircuts, differed radically from each other in manner: Dana Landers was cool as she tried to challenge a court document for not being properly signed, while Cherlyn Petersen repeatedly pressed her thumbs to her eyes as if heading off tears and stayed mainly mum.
The men’s approaches ranged from mumbled monosyllables to attempted diatribes. Steven Charles Hance declared that “My venue is the common law and my only lawgiver is Yahweh,” while Jon Barry Nelson told the judge that he was having horrible problems with his teeth, apparently cavities, that he had been denied painkillers and “I’m not going to be responsible for my actions if something’s not done about it.”
All had a basic defiance in their manner, though, as if to say they may have surrendered their bodies to the despised legal system but not their beliefs.
The freemen refused to acknowledge U.S. jurisdiction on their ranch, which they called “Justus Township,” some refused to pay taxes or hold government documents like driver’s licenses or Social Security identifications, and they subscribed to white supremacist religious tenets.
But some had always seemed like truer believers than others. The Clarks - Emmett, Ralph, Edwin and Casey, whom many see as basically good-at-heart members of a ranching family led astray - stayed mainly silent aside from asking to be represented by Gerry Spence - the Wyoming lawyer who defended Randy Weaver, the man whose wife and son were shot in the Ruby Ridge raid - or LeRoy Schweitzer, their jailed ideological leader.
Dana Landers and her husband, Russell Landers, who are wanted on charges in other states and are seen as more wrapped up in the freemen ideology, were more vocal.
Russell Landers even wore a red-white-and-blue stars-and-stripes shirt to court, and when Holter advised him to accept a court-appointed lawyer before his bail hearing so he wouldn’t have to sit in jail, he quipped jauntily, “It’s not my favorite hobby but I’ve got to do my job.”
Sherry Matteucci was doing her job as well, and dealing with freemen rejections of the legal system was a predictable part of it.
After sitting through two hours of their prickly attempts to impose their rules on the court, she told reporters calmly, “I thought the day went well - considering everything.”
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This sidebar appeared with the Spokane story only: AT WHAT COST? The long freemen standoff probably cost the government several million dollars, FBI Director Louis J. Freeh said Friday. But cost was not a factor, law enforcement officials said, because what counted was preserving lives. FBI and Justice Department officials said it would be difficult to estimate the cost to taxpayers of the 81-day siege in eastern Montana. Since March, a total of 633 federal agents rotated in and out of the standoff, working 12-hour shifts, according to FBI agent Thomas T. Kubic, the local FBI commander. There were as many as 150 in the Jordan, Mont., area at any one time.