Dwight Watson - Trial and Sentencing

Trial and Sentencing

Watson was subsequently charged with the federal crimes of making a false threat to detonate explosives and for destroying federal property, and stood trial in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. Watson initially represented himself, and unsuccessfully tried to subpoena such figures as Bill Clinton and Jesse Ventura, whom the judge refused as irrelevant to his case. Watson testified at trial that his comments about having an "organophosphate bomb" only referred to the two cans of Raid bug bombs he had in the tractor, which he threatened to use if he didn't get media coverage only because he wished to demonstrate the harmfulness of insecticides. In his pretrial interrogation by law enforcement, however, he had acknowledged that he intentionally let law enforcement continue to believe that he actually had explosives. The jury deliberated for less than an hour, and returned a guilty verdict on both charges on September 26, 2003.

Watson's sentencing was repeatedly delayed, particularly for a psychiatric evaluation ordered by the presiding judge, Thomas Penfield Jackson, who questioned Watson's mental health. Judge Jackson finally sentenced Watson to six years, far above the minimum sentence under the federal guidelines of sixteen months, based on what he saw as Watson's menacing conduct and the chaos his standoff had caused, and as a deterrent against future civil protesters tying up law enforcement and terrorizing the city. However, following the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Blakely v. Washington (2004) that judges could not impose stiffer sentences based on facts that a jury had not decided, Judge Jackson reduced the sentence to sixteen months on June 30, 2004. As Watson had already served over fifteen months by that time, he was released the next day and returned to his family and farm in North Carolina.

Prosecutors challenged the judge's reduction of Watson's sentence, and an appellate court agreed that the reduction was inaccurate and probably too lenient. Nearly four years later, Watson went back to court before District Court Chief Judge Thomas F. Hogan for reconsideration of his sentence on February 12, 2008, which was an uncommon situation for the federal court after a defendant had served his time and had been released. Although he believed Watson deserved another three years in prison, Judge Hogan declined to give Watson more prison time. Noting that it was only the second occasion he had departed from federal sentencing guidelines since Blakely was decided, Hogan stated that there would be little benefit to the public in returning him to prison, particularly since Watson was employed and taking care of his mentally ill sister.