For Immediate Release: May 11, 1998
Further information: Tom McNaught (617) 514-1662
Boston — A part-time county attorney who defied death threats and enforced the law against Montana’s fiercely anti-government “Freemen” was today named the winner of the annual John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award.
Garfield County Attorney Nickolas C. Murnion, who successfully prosecuted the Freemen for advocating terrorism and who rallied a small Montana community to stand up to the extremist hate group long before federal authorities were prepared to act, will be presented the $25,000 prize by members of President Kennedy’s family at a May 29 ceremony at the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum in Boston.
“My father most admired those politicians who had the courage to make decisions of conscience without regard for the consequences,”said Caroline Kennedy, President of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation. “Nick Murnion is a shining example of such courage. Although his life was threatened and a bounty placed on his head, he met the responsibilities of his office with honor and distinction. His passionate defense of our democratic system of government should be a source of pride for all Americans.”
As Garfield County’s attorney, Murnion was on the front lines in defending the nation’s rule of law against the Freemen, a private militia-type movement whose members reject the U.S. government and its laws and claim for themselves sovereign rights such as printing their own money orders and creating their own courts of law. They harass and intimidate public officials by trying them in absentia for treason, and by issuing official looking felony notices, arrest warrants, and multimillion-dollar common law liens threatening seizure of their property. Ideological allies of radical militia groups and white supremacists, the Freemen believe the United States is a Christian republic governed by Biblically-derived common law.
In March, 1994, the Freemen posted a $1 million bounty for the arrest and conviction of Murnion, the county sheriff and several others who were involved in the foreclosure of a Freeman’s property. They threatened to hang those found guilty from a nearby bridge.
Recognizing the growing movement as both a danger to public safety and as a serious threat to the nation’s constitutional form of government, Murnion stood up to the Freemen, and, using every legal option available to him, began prosecuting its members. He charged them with a variety of felonies including impersonating public officials, solicitation of kidnaping, and “criminal syndicalism,” a little-used state statute which makes it a felony to belong to a group that promotes violence or other methods of terrorism as a means of accomplishing political ends. He obtained the state’s first conviction under the statute.
In the three Freemen cases he prosecuted, Murnion obtained convictions. But several more of the defendants wanted on felony charges became fugitives, creating an armed camp at “Justus Township” a 960-acre ranch outside Jordan, Montana.
In his 1995 appearance before the House Subcommittee on Crime’s hearing on militia-type movements, Murnion testified, “We don’t get paid extra to prosecute these type of cases which subject us to such personal attacks. We do so because we took an oath of office and because of the belief that right should and will triumph in America if each of us does our part.”
On March 25, 1996, more than a year after Murnion first asked for federal aid, the FBI began its 81-day siege of the Freemen’s armed camp — the longest FBI siege in history. Five members of the Freemen were found guilty this year of various felonies. Two leaders of the Freemen are scheduled for trial starting May 26.
Murnion, 44, was elected to office in 1979 and is currently running for his 6th term as Garfield County Attorney, a part-time position serving an electorate of 1500 citizens in a 5000 square miles area. A 1978 graduate of the University of Montana Law School, Murnion is the only attorney in Garfield County. He lives in Jordan, a town of 500, with his wife LeAnn and their two children.
The John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award is presented annually to an elected official who has made a decision based on principle, and on the national good, despite opposition from local constituents, special interest groups, or adversaries. Described by one recipient as the “Nobel in Government,” it is named for President Kennedy’s 1957 Pulitzer prize-winning book, Profiles in Courage, which recounts the stories of eight U.S. Senators who risked their careers to fight for what they believed in. The award was created by the Kennedy Library Foundation in 1989 and is presented on or near May 29, in celebration of President Kennedy’s birthday.
Murnion is the ninth individual to receive the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award.
Murnion was selected for the prestigious award by a committee chaired by John Seigenthaler, Chairman of the Freedom Forum at the First Amendment Center, Vanderbilt University. Its members include:
- David Burke, former executive vice president of ABC News and president of CBS News;
- William F. Connell, chairman, Connell Limited Partnership;
- Antonia Hernandez, President and general counsel, Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund;
- Edward M. Kennedy, U.S. Senator from Massachusetts;
- Caroline Kennedy, author, attorney, and president of the Kennedy Library Foundation;
- John F. Kennedy, Jr., editor, attorney and vice chairman of the Kennedy Library Foundation;
- David McCullough, historian and author of the Pulitzer Prize winning biography Truman;
- Angela Menino, program assistant, John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company;
- Sherry H. Penney, Chancellor, University of Massachusetts at Boston;
- Mary Reed, vice president of human services, Morgan Memorial Goodwill Industries, Inc.;
- Alan Simpson, former U.S. Senator of Wyoming, and director of the Institute of Politics at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government;
- William vanden Heuvel, attorney, investment banker, and former special assistant to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy.