[Pnews] President Obama: use clemency to free a wrongfully convicted Native American

[Prisoner News]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/21/leonard-peltier-clemency-obama-pine-ridge 



  President Obama: use clemency to free a wrongfully convicted Native
  American

Martin Garbus <https://www.theguardian.com/profile/martin-garbus> and 
Cynthia K Dunne - December 21, 2016

Approaching the Standing Rock Reservation to stand with the Water 
Protectors, you couldn’t miss the dramatic display of tribal flags 
flying high along the dirt driveway and surrounding the perimeter of the 
large campgrounds. Scattered between hundreds of flags are banners 
bearing messages such as: /Mni Wiconi/, “water is life” in the Lakota 
language.

Also scattered among the flags were banners calling for the release of 
Leonard Peltier, a Native American who has been in jail for more than 41 
years, unjustly convicted 
<http://www.amnestyusa.org/our-work/cases/usa-leonard-peltier> of the 
1975 murders of FBI special agents Jack Coler and Ronald Williams on the 
Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. Barack Obama just 
<https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2016/12/19/president-obama-grants-commutations-and-pardons> 
pardoned or commuted the sentence of 231 individuals on Monday, and 
Peltier was not among them.

We represent Leonard Peltier in his 2016 clemency petition, which asks 
Obama to allow him to live his final years at home on the Turtle 
Mountain Reservation in North Dakota. Mr Peltier is old, ill and a 
threat to no one. The petition 
<http://www.whoisleonardpeltier.info/LEGAL/uploads/2016clemencyapp.pdf> 
seeks his release in the interests of justice and reconciliation and is 
supported <http://www.whoisleonardpeltier.info/home/support/> by Nobel 
Peace Prize laureates, humanitarians and scholars. Rights groups have 
embraced his cause, including more than 100,000 people who have signed 
an Amnesty International petition 
<http://act.amnestyusa.org/ea-action/action?ea.client.id=1839&ea.campaign.id=27118> 
calling for his release.

Over the course of our legal representation, we reviewed old government 
records obtained through decades of litigation under the Freedom of 
Information Act as well as court proceedings. Viewed through today’s 
lens, the case presents a glimpse of an era when social activists were 
considered a threat and Native American activists, in particular, were 
branded “extremists”.

The incident took place in the wake of the American Indian Movement’s 
(Aim’s) 1973 siege 
<http://www.whoisleonardpeltier.info/home/background/wounded-knee/> of 
the Wounded Knee Massacre site, where hundreds of unarmed Lakota men, 
women and children were murdered by the US Army in 1890. That siege 
brought attention to broken treaties, failed promises and tribal 
corruption. Under the FBI’s exclusive jurisdiction for the prosecution 
of major crimes, violence escalated in the impoverished and politically 
charged community; it is an era that locals refer to as the “Reign of 
Terror”.

Leonard Peltier arrived in June 1975 to help protect Oglala Lakota 
families from violence. On 26 June that year, two FBI agents entered the 
private property in unmarked cars and gunfire erupted. By the end of the 
incident, Agents Coler and Williams died, as did Native American Joseph 
Stuntz, although no charges were brought against anyone for his death.

Peltier states in the petition: “I did not wake up ... planning to 
injure or shoot federal agents, and did not gain anything from 
participating in the incident … I was [on Pine Ridge Reservation] to 
protect ... residents, not to cause harm … If I could have prevented 
this tragedy from occurring, I would have done so.”

FBI agents from across the country immediately were dispatched to Pine 
Ridge Reservation, where they launched what amounted to an assault upon 
the Oglala Lakota Nation. They made warrantless searches of homes, 
offices and residences, coerced testimony, detained people without cause 
and even restrained an attorney who attempted to prevent a warrantless 
search. Requests at the time from US Civil Rights Commission 
Investigator William Muldrow for independent oversight of the FBI were 
ignored by federal officials.

The injustices that contributed to Peltier’s conviction are not subject 
to credible dispute. Federal agents made false statements 
<http://www.whoisleonardpeltier.info/FREEPELTIERNOW/images/DOCN0011B.gif> 
to the press; submitted <http://www.freepeltiernow.org/extradition.html> 
false affidavits to courts; coerced 
<http://www.whoisleonardpeltier.info/LEGAL/TRIAL.htm> alleged witness 
statements; and deliberately withheld 
<http://www.whoisleonardpeltier.info/LEGAL/uploads/831056P.pdf> critical 
ballistics reports in order to gain an unfair advantage at trial.

When the ballistics results were discovered after trial, the 
government’s attorneys conceded – as they had to – that they had no 
credible evidence regarding who shot the FBI agents, and did not know 
whose weapon actually killed the agents.

Peltier’s many requests for a new trial were opposed by the government 
and denied by the courts. He remains in jail today primarily because of 
an “accomplice” theory of liability which was included in the written 
charges but not argued to the jury, that he allegedly assisted someone 
in an unidentified way.

The clemency petition does not reargue the verdict, but rather, it sets 
forth the facts and is supported by the FBI’s own records. If Obama does 
not grant the petition before he leaves office in just a few weeks, then 
it will be a death sentence for Peltier, who is next eligible for parole 
in 2024.

The tragic loss of all three lives will never be forgotten. That pain 
should not blind us, however, to what the case represented at the time, 
and has come to represent since.

In our opinion, history will record Peltier’s case as one of the 
greatest injustices in the history of the American justice system.

When a nation fails to reckon with its past, it risks the perpetuation 
of intolerance on one hand, and resentment on the other. To “seize a 
better future” as Obama has said 
<https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-obama-turkish-parliament>, 
our nation must reckon with its historical injustices against Native 
Americans.

Granting clemency to Leonard Peltier is not//a referendum on federal law 
enforcement. It is a declaration to the world that we embrace Native 
Americans <https://www.theguardian.com/world/native-americans> as equal 
members of society, and a pledge to become a stronger and fairer nation. 
It presents a moral imperative relevant to our nation’s past, present 
and future – and to Obama’s legacy.

After 41 years, please Mr President, free Leonard Peltier.

-- 
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 
863.9977 www.freedomarchives.org
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