On October 7, 2015, Judge Aiken resentenced Dwight L. Hammond and his son Steven D. Hammond to five years in prison with credit for time served for federal arson, the mandatory minimum for that crime. The Hammonds had illegally set fires on their ranch which burned 140 acres of federal land. U.S. District Judge Michael R. Hogan had sentenced the Hammonds to 3 months and 1 year in prison respectively, but Judge Aiken ruled that the minimum sentences must be followed. Armed militiamen led by Ammon Bundy occupied the Malheur Wildlife Refuge near the Hammonds' ranch in protest of the ruling, demanding that the Hammonds be released and that the hundred-year-old wildlife refuge be given over to local control. The defendants in the case were granted a full Presidential pardon by President Donald J. Trump on July 10, 2018.