FRESNO, Calif. (AP) — A federal judge has tossed the conviction of a Sonora filmmaker who was accused of trespassing and doing business inside Yosemite National Park without a permit after he shot American Indian ceremonial dances there.
U.S. District Judge Oliver Wanger dismissed Lorenzo Baca's conviction Tuesday agreeing that Baca may not have gotten a fair trial.
Baca, who is part Mescalero Apache and part Pueblo, had claimed the federal magistrate judge in the 2007 case should have recused himself because he displayed a noose in his chambers.
Wanger said Judge William Wunderlich was "oblivious to the negative messages of injustice and bigotry that the hangman's noose communicate." Wunderlich has said colleagues gave him the noose as a joke more than 20 years ago.