Article snippet: A U.S. judge who declared a mistrial last month could end the much-watched criminal prosecution of a Nevada rancher accused of leading an armed uprising against federal authorities. Chief U.S. District Judge Gloria Navarro's decision on Monday is sure to echo among states' rights advocates in Western states where the federal government controls vast expanses that some people want to remain protected and others want open for grazing, mining and oil and gas drilling. "To the Bundys, it's really more a political trial than a criminal trial," said Ian Bartrum, a University of Nevada, Las Vegas law professor. "They're trying to get a particular message out about federal government overreach in the West, and Nevada in particular, and that states should have more local control," Bartrum said of 71-year-old family patriarch Cliven Bundy and his co-defendant sons, Ryan and Ammon Bundy. "For the government, this is a criminal trial," Bartrum said. "They say, 'You can't have people show up with automatic weapons and defy federal officers.'" Indeed, Steven Myhre, the first assistant U.S. attorney in Nevada, has cast the Bundys and co-defendant Montana militia leader Ryan Payne as leaders of a conspiracy that enlisted protesters and gunmen to "do whatever it takes" to stop federal Bureau of Land Management agents from seizing Bundy cattle in a decades-long grazing dispute. The April 2014 standoff 80 miles (129 kilometers) northeast of Las Vegas pitted about three dozen ... Link to the full article to read more