Leonard Peltier
Peltier appeal questions government’s right to put him on trial
JIM DEE
Daily Ireland USA correspondent
Lawyers for a Native American activist who has spent nearly 30 years in jail for killings he claims he never committed, yesterday asked a South Dakota judge to free him on the grounds that the US had no jurisdiction on the Indian reservation where the killings occurred.
In April 1977, Leonard Peltier was convicted of killing FBI agents Jack Coler and Ron Williams during a shoot-out with members of the American Indian Movement at North Dakota’s Pine Ridge reservation on June 26, 1975. AIM activist Joe Stuntz also died in the gun-battle.
At the time, AIM had been asked to protect “traditional” Indians under attack from a violent quasi-official militia tied to the Washington-friendly Oglala Sioux tribal council that ran the reservation. Killings by these Guardians of the Oglala Nation – or GOONs, as they called themselves – had left Pine Ridge with the highest per-capita murder rate in the US at the time, prompting Indian activists to dub the period the Reign of Terror.
Peltier’s co-accused – Dino Butler and Bob Rubidium – were acquitted during a separate trial because of a lack of forensic evidence indicating who fired the fatal shots. Their lawyers had also argued persuasively that AIM engaged in the shoot-out in self-defence after the sudden, unannounced arrival of the gun-wielding FBI men on the Jumping Bull compound.
Leonard Peltier was extradited from Canada on evidence from a mentally disturbed woman who later said that the FBI threatened to harm her daughter if she didn’t falsely testify that she’d seen Peltier kill the agents.
Defence lawyers also subsequently discovered that prosecutors wrongly told the court that forensics proved Peltier’s rifle fired the fatal shots, despite knowing that FBI ballistics tests had shown that it wasn’t his weapon (an appeals court judge nevertheless later rejected Peltier’s request for a retrial).
Peltier’s cause has been advocated by human rights advocates around the globe, with the Dalai Lama, South Africa’s Desmond Tutu, and Sinn Féin’s Gerry Adams among the thousands who have lobbied for his immediate release.
Yesterday’s fresh appeal in Fargo, North Dakota was lodged on the grounds that the Pine Ridge Reservation is recognised as a sovereign nation under treaties between the US and the Oglala Sioux nation. Therefore, Peltier’s lawyers argued, the US had no right to jail him for actions which occurred outside its territorial boundaries.
Barry Bachrach, a Massachussetts-based lawyer helping to argue the new appeal, said that it is crucially important that the US did not prosecute Peltier under the 1885 Major (Indian) Crimes Act, which gave the US jurisdiction over crimes such as murders committed on Indian lands. Therefore, argues Bachrach, the prosecution of Peltier was illegitimate.
“This hearing is important because Mr Peltier was never charged with crimes over which the United States had jurisdiction,” insisted Bachrach prior to yesterday’s hearing.
“The history of the constitution, and the statutes implicated, unequivocally establish that Mr Peltier was not convicted under the Indian Crimes Act, which is the only possible authority under which the government could have tried and convicted Mr Peltier,” added Bachrach. “[T]he court had no jurisdiction to convict Mr Peltier under the crimes for which he was convicted, [therefore] those convictions must be set aside as a matter of law.”
In a statement released on the eve of the appeal from Leavenworth federal prison in Kansas, Leonard Peltier noted that the 30th anniversary of the Jumping Bull shoot-out is on Sunday.
“We did not start that war. We stood as brave warriors simply trying to protect the elders and the traditionals who did not wish to lose their identity to the forces conducting a war upon them,” said Peltier. “We mourn the many people who died during the Reign of Terror. We mourn that the fight continues. The forces attacking us have not stopped.
“However, this anniversary should not be a day only of mourning, but a day to reinvigorate our people’s efforts to achieve the rights and justice to which we are all due. Our people are not treated with the respect we are due. These injustices must stop. We must unite and speak as one to stop the injustices facing our people. Remember unity. Unity conquers all.”
No ruling in the Fargo appeal has yet been issued. Observers say the judge could issue his findings quickly, or take several months to make his ruling.
