OCR Text |
Show Judge is excited about reopened case CEDAR CITY Ninth Circuit Court Judge Christian Ronnow's office, and his person, reflect his background and his loves for certainly he is steeped in the folklore and love of the West. Besides the law books along one wall of his office are paintings of cowboys. The judge wears western boots. His background includes acting as counsel for southern Utah sheepmen when they took their case against the U.S. Government to court. He spent many of his younger years on a ranch. Thus, he has an interest, perhaps a double interest, in the recent decision to open that case, and he is excited at the "landmark" decision. He is not only excited that an old case he worked on has finally been reopened, but he is also "delighted" that the people he seems so familiar with, the ranchers and the people of southern Utah, have won a victory of sorts. "I'm delighted to no end . . . that these livestockmen, after all these years, are finally going to have the full evidence considered," he told the Record in an interview this week. Because he is now a judge, he cannot comment on any possible outcome of the case, but he is visually excited as he discusses the decision of Judge A. Sherman Christensen. "You see, that was my case," he said. "And it's virtually an earth-shaking decision." Ronnow and Dan S. Bushnell represented the ranchers in Federal court in 1955, but Bushnell now represents them alone. At that time, the government was found not responsible for the sheep deaths, but, even then, Ronnow and Bushnell knew everything wasn't quite right. Now that the trial has been reopened because of fraud, he can talk about it. " 'Lied under oath' is a very ugly phrase," he said, but it happened. Then, with the Kennedy hearings in 1979 in Salt Lake City, the evidence began to come forth. "We were just totally blown out of our minds, . . . and that gave Bushnell his start," Ronnow said about those hearings. But now, after nearly 30 years, the trial will begin again, and local livestockmen, along with a Cedar City judge, will be watching with intense interest. |