Prairieland Defense Says Withheld Bullet-Ricochet Evidence Would Undermine Attempted-Murder Charge Against Song

The Intercept reported September 27, 2026 that on the final day of the Prairieland trial — March 11, 2026, during closing arguments (not a September 2026 trial event; this is a retrospective/appeal-focused story published six months after the verdict) — in which nine Texas protesters were charged with crimes including providing material support to terrorism over a 2025 action at the Prairieland ICE detention center in Alvarado, Texas, the defense attorney for activist Benjamin Song argued that bullet-ricochet evidence disclosed only during the trial’s second week would undermine the government’s attempted-murder charge against him. Song was charged with attempting to shoot the first officer on scene; his defense contends ballistics evidence shows the shot could not have been directed at the officer.

Verdict and procedural posture (confirmed 2026-09-30, see cascade-research:prairieland-case-chronology-reconciled-2026-09-30): the jury convicted Song of attempted murder on March 13, 2026 (2026-03-13–prairieland-jury-convicts-eight-material-support-terrorism); he was sentenced to 100 years on June 23, 2026 (2026-06-23–prairieland-defendants-sentenced-30-100-years-antifa-terrorism). Neither Intercept piece fetched uses the word “Brady” — the dispute is reported as a late-disclosure/discovery-timing claim, not a named constitutional Brady claim, and the evidence was not excluded by the judge (it was argued to the jury in closing). Song’s defense raised it formally in an April 2026 motion for a new trial; that motion, along with his motions for acquittal and to set aside the judgment, was denied before sentencing — which is how the claim is preserved for appellate review. As of this article’s September 27, 2026 publication, the 5th Circuit had not yet issued a briefing notice. Separately, a pretrial ruling on March 3, 2026 barred all trial defendants from raising a self-defense theory at trial (TPR, https://www.tpr.org/news/2026-03-03/prairieland-ice-shooting-defendants-cant-claim-self-defense-during-trial-judge-rules) — a genuine judicial exclusion, but a distinct mechanism from the ricochet-evidence disclosure dispute. As of the last dated appeal-status reporting (KERA, 2026-06-30), only 4 of the 9 trial defendants (Sanchez-Estrada, Batten, Evetts, Elizabeth Soto) were confirmed by name to have filed notices of appeal; whether Song separately filed his own notice of appeal was not resolved by any source found this pass.

Prairieland is the case the corpus has tracked from its first unsealed charges through conviction and sentencing: DOJ unsealed the first “antifa terrorism” charges in October 2025 (2025-10-16–doj-unseals-first-antifa-terrorism-charges-prairieland), seven of nine defendants pleaded guilty that November (2025-11-19–seven-prairieland-defendants-plead-guilty-material-support), a jury convicted the remaining eight in March 2026 (2026-03-13–prairieland-jury-convicts-eight-material-support-terrorism), and defendants were sentenced to 30-100 years in June (2026-06-23–prairieland-defendants-sentenced-30-100-years-antifa-terrorism). This entry documents a post-conviction evidentiary dispute in that same case — whether ballistics evidence supporting Song’s attempted-murder charge specifically was properly disclosed — a live open question pending confirmation of the case’s current appellate posture.