ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, March 6, 1996 TAG: 9603060062
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JAN VERTEFEUILLE STAFF WRITER
If citizens' militia member Bill Stump doesn't get prison time, his prosecutor told a federal judge, his case could set a dangerous precedent for other anti-government activists who think they can ``hide in the veil of ideology'' to avoid punishment.
Stump is an ``unrepentant criminal'' who refuses to recognize the federal court's authority and therefore doesn't deserve a break, the prosecutor said in opposing a judge's decision to give the self-described ``constitutionalist'' a lighter sentence than federal guidelines require.
Chief U.S. District Judge Jackson Kiser said last week that he planned to give Stump a lighter sentence because he believed the federal guidelines didn't apply. He said they don't take into account Stump's possession of illegal gun silencers for a ``sporting purpose'' because they presume such silencers will be used in further criminal activity. He gave the government until this week to respond.
In a response filed Monday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Don Wolthuis said, ``Stump stands before this court in a different posture than almost any defendant that I have seen. Stump, motivated as he may be by his beliefs, refuses to recognize the legitimacy of this very court and the laws which it upholds.''
Atthough he shouldn't pushed for his beliefs, Wolthuis said, Stump must be incarcerated or he and others in the militia movement will feel justified in their belief that federal courts hold little power over them.
``The failure to impose the sentence required by law is to publicly pronounce that Stump is immune from punishment because the court lacks not the power, but the will,'' Wolthuis told Kiser.
Stump has represented himself because he does not trust lawyers, and has insisted that federal officials lack jurisdiction in Virginia to bring charges against him.
The prosecutor also said that Kiser's reasoning for departing from the sentencing guidelines was not authorized.
Stump was part of the Blue Ridge Hunt Club, a Pulaski County citizens' militia formed to prepare for battle if the federal government ever turned on its citizens.
The Pulaski machinist was convicted for his activities at the club's second meeting in May 1994, where he handled two rifles that militia founder James Roy Mullins had equipped with homemade silencers fashioned out of galvanized metal piping. Stump said he fired at least one of them during target practice in the woods.
Any attachment to a gun that reduces its sound is considered a silencer. Citizens are allowed to make their own silencers, but they first must apply for permission, pay $200 and register them.
Congress and the courts recognize no sporting purpose for silencers, hand grenades or machine guns, Wolthuis argued. Even if there was a legal ``sporting purpose'' for silencers, which cannot be used for hunting, Stump's case doesn't qualify, he said.
The hunt club was ``much more than the boys out plinking cans, taking target practice,'' Wolthuis wrote. ``Albeit crude, this was intended as military-style training.''
If Kiser sentenced him under federal guidelines, Stump would face two to three years in prison. A judge can go below the guidelines, but must justify doing so.
Sentencing is March 22.
LENGTH: Medium: 65 linesby CNB