[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 2 (Tuesday, January 5, 2016)]
[House]
[Page H5]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          THE HAMMOND SENTENCE

  (Mr. LaMALFA asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, this week a father and son reported to 
serve again an additional up to 4 years in Federal prison. Their crime? 
Setting preventative fires on their own property that accidentally 
spread to Federal lands.
  The Hammonds, family farmers from Oregon, had already served time in 
Federal prison: Dwight 3 months, Steven a year. However, that wasn't 
good enough for U.S. Attorney Billy Williams, who used taxpayer dollars 
to appeal the Hammonds' original sentence and urged the Ninth Circuit 
to impose harsher penalties, over the judge's objection, who had 
recommended in his vision much less harsh penalties for the crime in 
question.
  Mr. Speaker, the question isn't whether or not the Hammonds started 
these fires. They admit they did. The question is whether the U.S. 
attorney and his administration are prosecuting real criminals or 
pursuing a political agenda. Mr. Speaker, when a 74-year-old man and a 
45-year-old father of three are forced to return to prison when they 
have already served time and paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in 
fines for a nonviolent, unintentional crime, the answer couldn't be 
more clear whether this is political or not.

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