Law Enforcement Officials Defend Sniper

BOISE, Idaho — Top law enforcement officials stepped up in defense of FBI sharpshooter Lon Horiuchi, arguing Friday that criminal manslaughter charges he faces in connection with the siege at Ruby Ridge threaten to undermine federal law enforcement efforts across the country.

“It is impossible to imagine a more chilling circumstance than the one presented by the instant effort to prosecute,” a coalition of former U.S. attorneys general, joining the Department of Justice and the International Assn. of Chiefs of Police, argued in papers submitted to the federal court in Idaho where Horiuchi faces trial.

The prosecution, the first time an FBI agent has faced state criminal charges stemming from a federal law enforcement operation, “could well include endangering the life of the president of the United States in the moment when sharpshooters responsible for protecting that life hesitate to consider what state they are in when evaluating a threat to the president,” the officials said.

U.S. District Judge Edward Lodge will rule in the next few weeks on Horiuchi’s argument that he is immune from state prosecution because he was carrying out his federal law enforcement duties in August 1992 when he fired the shot that killed Vicki Weaver, wife of anti-government activist Randy Weaver.

The Justice Department has said Horiuchi acted properly when he shot the 42-year-old woman as she stood holding her infant daughter just inside the door of the Weaver cabin.

Horiuchi has said he was aiming at Kevin Harris, a Weaver friend who was believed to have shot at federal marshals in a firefight the previous day that killed Deputy U.S. Marshal William Degan. Harris, he said, had pointed his gun at a law enforcement helicopter flying overhead and was running back into the cabin to take a position Horiuchi believed would further threaten law enforcement agents outside. The bullet he fired killed Vicki Weaver, then struck Harris, wounding him.

Denise Woodbury, the prosecutor in Boundary County, Idaho, has charged Horiuchi with involuntary manslaughter, arguing that he was grossly negligent in firing without ascertaining who else might be in the bullet’s path.

But lawyers for Horiuchi and the Justice Department argued Friday that long-running legal precedent grants federal law enforcement officers immunity from state prosecution when they are carrying out a federal operation, as long as they reasonably believe they are acting within the scope of their duties.

Idaho prosecutors said the question of whether Horiuchi acted reasonably should be up to a jury to decide.