Arizona rancher wins (mostly)

Roger Barnett, the Arizona rancher who was sued by illegal aliens for false imprisonment, battery and violating their civil rights (?) after he detained them for trespassing on his property, was cleared of those allegations by a federal jury on Tuesday.

He was, however, found liable "on four claims of assault and four claims of infliction of emotional distress and ordered Barnett to pay $77,804 in damages — $60,000 of which were punitive."

Painful, but a much better result than the 32 million dollars the illegals were seeking in total. Barnett's attorney David Hardy, who blogs at Of Arms and the Law, feels that Barnett has a very strong chance of having even those reduced damage awards reversed on appeal. In fact, here's what Hardy stated on his blog the damages from the "assault" awards added up to:

"Assault: defense verdict as to two, two got $1400 each (minus 25% for their own fault), two got a nominal $1."

He also posted a picture of one of the plaintiffs who claimed to have been kicked in the leg, one of the assault charges that Barnett was cleared of. Take a look for yourself to see if there's evidence of an injury; I surely don't see any.

Those amounts awarded to the plaintiffs aren't exactly a strong statement in favor of their arguments, are they? I must confess that I'm even less impressed with the "emotional distress" award, that category being the vast majority of the monies awarded,

"Infliction of emotional distress: Two got $1,000 each (minus 25% for their fault) plus $10,000 punitives each, two got $7,500 each actuals (-25%) plus $20,000 each, two got a defense verdict."

since Barnett was merely doing his best to protect his own property from being overrun by thousands of migrants who cared not a whit about the damage they were doing and the mountains of trash they were leaving behind. Here's a picture of what Barnett's land looked like after illegals passed through it, and here's some pictures of the large amounts of narcotics recovered from his property after being abandoned by drug mules.

"All six plaintiffs are citizens of Mexico, five of whom are living in the United States with visa applications pending"

So they're still here illegally, even after having been caught red-handed trying to enter the country through Mr. Barnett's private property. Why?

If anyone cares to donate to Barnett's apparently excellent defense, here's the info:

"This from a supporter of Roger: "Anyone interested in making a contribution to Roger's defense by check, please send and address funds directly to:

Roger Barnett Legal Defense Fund
1498 E. Fry Blvd.
Sierra Vista, AZ 85635

or by Credit Card: call Barnett's Towing: 1-800-722-2303"

Well done, Mr. Hardy.