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CRUEL AND UNUSUAL PUNISHMENT: <br>
IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER <br>
<br>
By <br>
Leonard Peltier <br>
<br>
Amendment VIII. Excessive bail shall not be required, nor <br>
excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual <br>
punishments inflicted. <br>
<br>
<br>
The Eighth Amendment is supposed to be about dignity, <br>
humanity and decency. It is intended to prohibit <br>
*deliberate indifference to serious infliction of unnecessary <br>
or wanton pain or physical torture or lingering death*. The <br>
Eighth Amendment, I'm told, should reflect the standards <br>
of a *maturing* society and your correctional system <br>
shouldn't be just about depriving people of freedom, but <br>
rehabilitation. <br>
<br>
But that is not how it works for me or many other <br>
prisoners. Protection against *cruel and unusual <br>
punishment* has faded away as have the rights of ordinary <br>
citizens under such things as the Patriot Act and Homeland <br>
Security. More and more information about FBI <br>
misconduct has come to light recently. Our government <br>
continues to fabricate and/or withhold evidence. They do <br>
this not to *protect and serve,* but for political gain. <br>
<br>
Prison is a very cruel reality. But unusual? Imprisonment
<br>
has become a common experience, especially among <br>
Native Americans. There are now approximately 3 million <br>
people in United States prisons. <br>
<br>
The Constitution protects against *cruel and unusual <br>
punishment,* and, therefore, if the Constitution has <br>
meaning, then you, as citizens, MUST care. To ignore the <br>
cruel and extreme conditions prisoners endure -- <br>
overcrowding, poor medical care, and unhealthy conditions <br>
-- is to return to a way that the Eighth Amendment was <br>
intended to end. <br>
<br>
The courts say prison officials have to have acted with <br>
*deliberate indifference* to the safety, health and welfare <br>
of prisoners for punishment to be considered cruel and <br>
unusual. I don't know what this means because *deliberate <br>
indifference* is a way of life in prison. Imagine suffering <br>
a stroke, as I did, and slowly losing part of your sight in an <br>
environment where all of your senses are required for <br>
survival; or suffering extreme jaw pain for years, until the <br>
United Nations forced your government to stop the torture <br>
and provide the necessary health care. <br>
<br>
There are other ways prisoners are deprived of their <br>
humanity. In many prisons, we Native Americans are not <br>
allowed to practice our spiritual beliefs and traditions, as if <br>
separation from the earth with which we are one -- as <br>
stewards, not owners -- were not punishment enough. <br>
<br>
The Eighth Amendment prohibits arbitrary and <br>
disproportionate punishments, too. The normal Federal <br>
guideline for prisoners convicted of homicide offenses is <br>
200+ months. This means that I should have been released <br>
from prison over a decade ago. The U.S. Parole <br>
Commission refuses to consider the possibility of my <br>
receiving parole until at least December 2008 -- when I will <br>
have served double the normal time -- and there is no <br>
guarantee that I will be paroled even then. This <br>
disproportionate sentence is particularly cruel and unusual <br>
because there is no basis to support the Commission's <br>
reasons for doubling my time for parole consideration. The <br>
Commission explains its departure from its own <br>
congressionally mandated guidelines by saying that I was <br>
involved in an *ambush* of two FBI agents and that I <br>
executed them at point blank range after the agents had <br>
been incapacitated. There's no evidence to support those <br>
findings and there never was. The government attorneys <br>
have even admitted that they do not know who shot the <br>
agents. <br>
<br>
The Commission's ruling is not supported by my <br>
convictions, which the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals <br>
upheld on an aiding and abetting theory. That was a shift <br>
in the government's position after we discovered the <br>
government withheld evidence that undercut their case. I <br>
was never tried on aiding and abetting and there is no <br>
evidence that I knowingly aided and abetted in the <br>
shooting of the two agents. <br>
<br>
I can tell you I didn't intend (nor did I) shoot anyone. My <br>
only crime was that I defended my People from attack. In <br>
my culture, our first responsibility is always survival. <br>
There is no other choice when faced with destruction, but <br>
to turn and defend ourselves, our women and our children. <br>
That is what I did when the agents invaded the private <br>
property of the people I and others were there to protect. <br>
Yet, I remain in prison awaiting another appeal, another <br>
parole hearing. and so it goes. <br>
<br>
The so-called patriots of today ignore constitutional <br>
protections, the very ideas this country was founded upon. <br>
Under the guise of threats to *national security,* the U.S. <br>
government has rounded up *terrorists* and detained them, <br>
never to try them or, if they do, to conduct sham trials. <br>
<br>
This reminds me of the stories I heard as a child about the <br>
hanging of 39 Dakota warriors on December 26, 1862, in <br>
Mankato, Minnesota. The hanging followed trials which <br>
condemned over 300 combatants in the 1862 Dakota <br>
Conflict, and stands as the largest mass execution in <br>
American history. The mere participation of the warriors in <br>
a battle justified the death sentence. So, where a prisoner <br>
admitted firing shots, he was immediately pronounced <br>
guilty without any consideration. President Lincoln might <br>
have signed the death warrants of all 300 defendants. He <br>
stopped at 38 after an aide told him that history would look <br>
upon him unfavorably if he signed all of the death <br>
warrants. A youth the guards simply grabbed along the <br>
way to the gallows became the 39th victim. The mass <br>
execution occurred in the opening years of the American- <br>
Sioux treaty conflict that would not end until the Seventh <br>
Calvary completed its massacre at Wounded Knee, South <br>
Dakota, on December 29, 1890. <br>
<br>
What I have learned in the past 28 years is that innocence is <br>
the weakest defense where your government has decided to <br>
target a person and/or squash dissent. Innocence has a <br>
single voice that can only say over and over again, *I didn't <br>
do it.* Guilt has a thousand voices, all of them lies. And,
<br>
unless an innocent lies and admits guilt -- so the <br>
government can claim victory -- the innocent remains <br>
imprisoned. Punishment for a crime a person did not <br>
commit is the cruelest punishment of all. <br>
<br>
In the end, maybe you think injustice can't happen to you, <br>
only to someone else, the Other. Maybe you can sweep the <br>
streets of all undesirables, of everyone who is an Other. <br>
But, one day, you may be declared the Other yourself. <br>
What then? <br>
<br>
Justice is not a flexible tool. Unless we all do our part to <br>
ensure that justice is applied equally to all human beings, <br>
we are a party to its abuse. We must stand together to <br>
protect the rights of others. No child should go hungry, no <br>
woman denied protection from abuse, no person refused <br>
health care or an education, no prisoner held for political <br>
reasons. But, as long as any constitutional rights are <br>
allowed to become meaningless, YOU are at risk. The sad <br>
thing is that most people outside the prison walls don't <br>
even know it. <br>
<br>
Mitakuye Oyasin. <br>
<br>
In the Spirit of Crazy Horse, <br>
<br>
<br>
Leonard Peltier <br>
<br>
Note: According to a report issued by the U.S. Department <br>
of Justice on July 25th, a record 6.9 million adults -- 1 in <br>
32 (or 3.2 percent) of the adult U.S. population - were <br>
incarcerated or on probation or parole last year, nearly <br>
131,000 more than in 2002. <br>
<br>
*********************************************** <br>
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