Lesser of 2 Evils: White Separatists’ Trial Also Seen as Indictment of Federal Siege : Law: As case of fatal Idaho standoff comes to close, defendants gain sympathy. Prosecution’s evidence and testimony expose blunders.

In a case hinging on the question of who fired first, a federal jury heard closing arguments Tuesday in the trial of two white separatists charged with murder and conspiracy stemming from the bloody federal siege of their remote mountain cabin last year.

Despite their extremist views and prophesy of an inevitable holy war with federal agents, the duo--Randall Weaver, 45, an ex-Green Beret, and Kevin Harris, 25--became heroes in the eyes of some backcountry Idahoans and have won more sympathy generally as the nine-week trial progressed.

The evidence and testimony pointed to so many blunders by federal agents and the U.S. attorney’s office that U.S. District Judge Edward Lodge remarked: “About 75% of the witnesses called by the government have been favorable to the defense.”

Seeking to arrest Weaver for failing to appear in court on a federal firearms charge, agents spying on his plywood ridge-top cabin Aug. 21 walked into a gunfight that led to an 11-day siege.

Deputy U.S. Marshal William Degan was killed in the shootout, along with Weaver’s son, Sammy, 14, and his yellow Labrador retriever, Striker.

The next day, an FBI sniper fatally shot Weaver’s wife, Vicki, 43, in the face as she cradled her 10-month-old daughter in her arms. Weaver and Harris were wounded.

Surrounded by 200 heavily armed officers, both men eventually surrendered to face federal murder and conspiracy charges carrying possible life sentences.

But the jury learned that Weaver was not properly notified of the initial hearing date and that spent rounds collected by FBI investigators near Weaver’s cabin were subsequently replaced, photographed and presented at the trial as untampered evidence by federal prosecutors.

Separately, Lodge fined federal prosecutors $3,200--the equivalent of a day’s collective pay--for delays in providing crucial evidence to Harris’ attorney, David Nevin, and Weaver’s attorney, flamboyant Jackson, Wyo., trial lawyer Gerry Spence.

Lodge’s sanctions were levied after it was revealed that internal FBI reports and documents--including notes written by the FBI sharpshooter who killed Weaver’s wife--were sent to the defense via 4th Class mail. The inch-thick packet of documents did not arrive until after the FBI sharpshooter had left the witness stand and departed for Washington, D.C.

Three times in May, Asst. U.S. Atty. Ronald Howen had to apologize to the defense over these and other gaffes, including losing bullets that had been recovered at the scene and misplacing transcripts of interviews conducted by the FBI. The transcripts were later discovered in a desk drawer.

Spence surprised the court last week by announcing that the defense would rest its case without calling a witness.

“It’s occasionally done when there seems to be a gross absence of proof,” Spence explained later.

Among the dozens of relatives and supporters of the defendants who packed the courtroom Tuesday was James G. (Bo) Gritz, a Army Special Forces veteran and minor party presidential candidate who had tried to negotiate with Weaver for his surrender.

“My prayer was that the government would be confused,” Gritz said, “and that’s just what happened.”

In closing arguments, Asst. U.S. Atty. Kim Lindquist said the defendants were obsessed with the notion that the federal government was bent on persecuting them for their religious and political beliefs, which led them to “push the perimeters of reasonableness and common sense.”

Weaver, his wife and Harris, Lindquist said, “believed they were dealing with Satan himself, and that became the center of their lives.”

“This is a case of resolve on the part of Weaver and Harris to defy laws to the point of using violence,” he said. “This whole thing is a tragedy . . . the cause was the resolve of the Weaver family, and that translates into murder.”

But Spence and Nevin argued that government agents entrapped Weaver into selling two illegal sawed-off shotguns to undercover agents and later provoked the bloody confrontation.

Spence also suggested that conflicting testimony and mishandled evidence made it uncertain whether Harris actually fired the fatal shot that struck Degan in the chest, as charged in an eight-count indictment.

“The theme of this case is to demonize Randall Weaver and make him into an ugly, hateful, spiteful person,” Spence said, pounding his fist on a lectern a few feet from the jury, “so that they could cover up the murder of a boy shot in the back and a woman shot in the head.”

Lindquist, in his rebuttal, reminded the jurors of the loss to Degan’s family, saying: “There is a wife and two boys who would give anything to get their dad back.”

Outside the courtroom, Spence equated the siege of Weaver’s fortified mountaintop cabin with the Branch Davidian standoff that ended in the deaths of more than 80 people in Waco, Tex., in April.

There, too, defense attorneys insist that federal authorities conducted a botched investigation that culminated in a bloody firefight, while prosecutors claim that the confrontation was planned by a group of extremists seeking an apocalyptic end.

Weaver’s problems with the federal government started when he was arrested near his cabin on Jan. 17, 1991, on a charge of selling the two shotguns to an undercover U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agent.

The next day, Weaver was ordered to appear for trial on the firearms charge on Feb. 19, 1991, in Moscow, Ida. The trial date was subsequently changed to Feb. 20, but Weaver was notified in a letter from a probation officer that the trial was March 20.

When Weaver failed to appear for the trial on Feb. 20, a federal judge issued a bench warrant for his arrest. The warrant was followed by a federal grand jury indictment against Weaver for failing to appear, issued March 14, 1991, six days before Weaver believed he was supposed to show up.

Lindquist said Weaver’s court-appointed attorney at the time did appear in court on Feb. 20 and informed the judge that he had mailed four letters to his client advising him of the trial date.

However, prosecutors were unable to prove that any of the letters reached the cabin, which had no telephone.