A life sentence for the offenses against Malheur is too harsh.  The ill-managed over-sentencing of the Hammonds is one reason this mess started. We are addicted to over-sentencing.

Mr. Finicum would be alive if the occupation hadn't occurred, but his behavior over those weeks and on the day of his death suggests that he was on his own chosen path. In a way he was the most honorable of them all; he never abandoned that path once he chose it, unlike those who dropped their guns, their munchies and their dignity and fled into the freezing night when Ammon Bundy was arrested. I can't defend his wrongful acts, but he was hardly the Bundys' tool or victim.

It's also true that the Bundites swaggered in and out of federal buildings while armed, making messes and doing damage.  They need to do time for this.

I have been a friend and visitor to Malheur all my adult life and then some.  I hope that I can also be a friend to justice. Life in prison?  I hope the judge has better sense.