Militia member convicted of weapons charges
Posted on Saturday, January 13, 2007
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/nwat/News/49072/
A jury found Hollis Wayne Fincher guilty Friday of owning illegal weapons in U. S. District Court in Fayetteville.
Fincher is the lieutenant commander in the Militia of Washington County.
The defense planned on arguing that the U. S. Constitution allows Fincher to build and own machine guns and sawed-off shotguns. U. S. District Judge Jimm Larry Hendren ruled that testimony inadmissible.
The 60-year-old Washington County man faces 20 years in federal prison, but his attorney said he plans to appeal.
Oscar Stilley, Fincher’s attorney, said he believed the outcome could have been different if he had been able to present certain information to the jury.
“ If we’d gotten a jury instruction on the 2 nd Amendment, we probably would’ve won, ” he said.
Don Bright, Fincher’s friend and supporter, was also unhappy with the verdict.
“ It goes without saying that we were very disappointed and quite angry at the judge, actually, ” Bright said.
“ He reduced the allowable evidence down to where he left Wayne with no defense, ” he said, adding that the judge restricted the jury to where it could only do what the judge said they could do.
Bright said that while the judge did not say it word for word, “ What he said, in effect, was that the people of Arkansas are too stupid to be on a jury. ”
He went on to say that it was “ quite obvious that the judge wanted the government to win the case. ”
Fincher will remain in the Sebastian County jail in Fort Smith until sentencing, which will be within 45 to 60 days.