Defense calls just one witness in trial of Utah’s Recapture Canyon riders; closing arguments Friday

Attorneys for four men charged with conspiracy after organizing a motorized ride up Recapture Canyon a year ago put on a simple defense in court Thursday — calling just one witness. The accused conspirators — San Juan County Commissioner Phil Lyman, blogger Monte Wells, Shane Marian and Franklin Trent Holliday — did not testify in their own defense. Instead, their attorneys called a single witness — San Juan Water Conservancy District water master Ferd Johnson. Johnson testified he gave Lyman and 50 protesters permission to drive up a road that goes about a mile or two into the section of the archeologically significant canyon the Bureau of Land Management had closed in 2007. Federal land managers had granted the local water district a right-of-way to maintain a pipeline that runs along the canyon bottom for a few miles below Recapture Dam. Then, the defense rested. Much of the four-day trial's testimony has focused on the writings and interviews of the accused conspirators before the May 10 ATV rally — both in traditional media and on Facebook. Prosecutors submitted into evidence a 2014 opinion piece Lyman wrote for the Deseret News before the protest. At the time, Lyman wrote on his Facebook page that he was disappointed the newspaper did not publish his invitation to the protest. U.S. attorneys also used recordings from San Juan County Commission meetings to show Lyman talked about the protest as a public official. And they included an interview with KUTV Channel 2, when Lyman told a reporter, "I'm only breaking the law from a federal standpoint."...more