Ammon Bundy said charges were unconstitutional. Judge denies dismissal, moves trial date
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The legal proceedings for far-right activist and Idaho governor candidate Ammon Bundy will be stretched out a little longer, after Ada County Magistrate Judge Kira Dale denied Bundy’s motion to stay and motion to dismiss at a status hearing on Monday afternoon.
His jury trial, which was set to begin Thursday, has been moved to 8:15 a.m on March 14. The trial will cover Bundy’s trespassing charges from April 8, 2021, when he was arrested twice in one day for entering the Idaho Capitol. At the time, he was under a one-year ban from the building after he was arrested in August 2020 for refusing to leave the Statehouse’s Lincoln Auditorium during a special legislative session. That arrest led to his conviction on two misdemeanor charges.
At Monday’s hearing, Bundy attorney Seth Diviney tried to argue that the ban from the Statehouse was unconstitutional. Diviney said Idaho Department of Administration Director Keith Reynolds did not have the authority to revoke Bundy’s access.
The judge disagreed.
“It’s denied now, because there just isn’t enough of a basis for it,” Dale said of the dismissal motion.
The March trial will be Bundy’s second in nine months. Last July, a jury found Bundy guilty of misdemeanor trespassing and resisting or obstructing officers related to the Lincoln Auditorium arrest. He was sentenced to 40 hours of community service and $1,089 in fines.
Bundy, who is running in the Republican primary for governor, has argued that his voluntary Idaho gubernatorial campaign stops satisfy his court-mandated community service connected to the conviction, the Idaho Statesman previously reported.
Dale said she will be issuing a written ruling on her decisions at Monday’s hearing.
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