But Ruby Ridge is an important case even for those of us who don’t worry about black helicopters or don’t “live off the grid.” The decision this week by the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to allow Idaho to try to hold the FBI responsible for the woman’s death was an important boost to our constitutional rights. I’m one of those people who believes that, by and large, the federal government has been a force for good when it gets involved in civil-liberties issues at the local level. But this time, the Feds did tread on us-all of us. Only now, are we finding redress.
Some background: The FBI now admits that sharpshooter Lon Horiuchi was ordered to shoot and kill any armed male who ventured outside Randy Weaver’s cabin. (If they were inside the cabin, he was supposed to hold his fire). This order has been widely viewed as illegal; there is no basis in law for shoot-to-kill orders when no self-defense is involved. In any event, in the confusion, Horiuchi shot Randy’s wife, Vicki Weaver, in the head as she stood in the doorway holding her baby.
The FBI’s first reaction was to cover the whole thing up-an approach that extended toward the highest levels of the bureau. After the details of the incident began to emerge, the Justice Department decided-surprise, surprise-not to prosecute Horiuchi. Idaho prosecutors thought Horiuchi should be tried for Vicki Weaver’s death, and asserted that they had every right to do so. (Horiuchi has said that he didn’t see Vicki Weaver when he fired.) But U.S. government lawyers, hoping to avoid the risk of a state trial, put forward a convenient legal theory: federal law-enforcement authorities are “immune” from state and local prosecution, even when their actions are clearly unconstitutional under both state and federal law.
These immunities have their place; imagine if local segregationists in the South during the 1960s had tried to prosecute U.S. marshals for their role in the civil-rights movement. But in recent years the pendulum has swung too far toward giving law-enforcement officers immunity from prosecution. There’s something wrong with a system that lets the federal government stay safely above the law, unaccountable to any other jurisdiction, in a matter of life and death.
