American Indian activist Leonard Peltier, convicted in FBI agent deaths, denied parole

Source: LA Times/AP

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — American Indian activist Leonard Peltier, imprisoned since 1977 for the deaths of two FBI agents, has been denied parole after authorities decided that releasing him would diminish the seriousness of his crime, a federal prosecutor said Friday.

Peltier, who claims the FBI framed him, will not be eligible for parole again until July 2024, when he will be 79 years old.

U.S. Attorney Drew Wrigley announced the decision of the U.S. Parole Commission.

Peltier is serving two life sentences for the execution-style deaths of FBI agents Jack Coler and Ronald Williams during a June 26, 1975, standoff on South Dakota's Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. He was convicted in Fargo, N.D., in 1977.

He has said the FBI framed him, which the agency denies, and unsuccessfully appealed his conviction numerous times. He also was denied parole in 1993.

"Leonard Peltier is an unrepentant, cold-blooded murderer who executed FBI special agents Williams and Coler, and in doing that he tore them from their families and from their communities forever," Wrigley said. "Leonard Peltier is exactly where he belongs — federal prison, serving two life sentences."

Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-us-peltier-parole,0,1411297.story

:mad:

Even if he had been the shooter, he's already spent much more time behind bars than most would do for murder.

And he wasn't the shooter.

:grr:

Read "Agents of Repression" by Ward Churchill & Jim VanderWall (full disclosure--my childhood neighbor). It provides a good overview of the case.

shit, Shit SHIT :cry: :cry: :cry:


In tears,

Diane

ANISHNABE AND PROUD

Stay strong, Brother

"Idiocracy" is documentary

There are better sources all over.

raises serious doubts about the correctness of the prosecution,
in short, whether this was a political prosecution pressured by fbi seeking
blood irrespective of culpability. They were embarrassed by a bungled,
incompetent, and unnecessary confrontation that cost the lives of several
officers. They screwed up, so someone else was going to pay.
So it seemed at the time. I'm old enough to remember it.

It is further clear from the statement regarding denial
of parole that the denial was on POLITICAL grounds rather than based on accepted theories
and policies balancing Deterrence, Rehabilitation, Retribution, and Utilitarianism.
It raises a doubt as to the quality of the parole board.

there would be less care about it, one supposes, if there were not also serious
doubts about Peltier's actual guilt, other than for presence on the scene and flight.

This is not a case that a righteous man can point to and say with any confidence,
justice has been done, nor is the fire of indignity expressed by the fbi in this case
particularly persuasive.

Because these things are known by many, "Free Leonard" posters appear in my CAL community
in many places, and are left by the residents respectfully undisturbed.

All this seems clear.
What is not clear is what "fake native americans" have to do with this
unfortunate subject, and so that seemed to me quite a disconnected comment.

FREE LEONARD PELTIER!

He is not guilty of any crime!

:dem:

This is a thread on the denial of parole in a controversial and politically
charged case of a now elderly inmate incarcerated as a young man where
there is some serious doubts about his guilt and grave concern about
the politicization of his prosecution.

DUers seem to generally be sensitive to issues of social justice, and rule of
just laws. I think the thread here has achieved sufficient recs and comment
to give some notice of that, and I think (modest) expressions in support and
(modest) expression in opposition are proper in this thread.

In short, here's your chance to shout it out.

I'm talking about the fake Native American.

I wasn't trying to beat up your comment. Regret if I came on too strong.
I didn't quite understand its context, is most of it.

I though the gravity of the thread overshadowed any controversy
over Ward Churchill and whether he is, isn't, or even claims to be
a Cherokee or whatever.

No reason not to be proud of being a Native American, I would agree.
but then isn't a guy who claims it also proclaiming he values it highly,
even if its not true? especially if its not true. Its a compliment.
I don't begrudge such a claim.

I'm not native american.. but
My stepdad growing up had TWO FULL blooded Cherokee grandparents. He was 1/4
Cherokee from Oklahoma, and it showed! Hey! Big stappin handsome guy, successful,
a top ranking military NCO Sr Master, and a very cool guy, imo. I liked him. RIP.
He was a proud man too, and I saw no reason at all he shouldn't be.

Churchill has done considerable work in Native American studies for which
he is recognized. His dedication and loyalty to that cause has been demonstrated.
Spirit is more to the world than blood.

No offense meant friend. Peace.

One hundred percent Caucasian American, and a member of a tribe he made up to land a university position. The university found a way to fire him when the fraud came out. He was granted tenure as a "special opportunity position." He sued when they fired him for ethics violations in misrepresenting his race. The jury ruled in his favor, and awarded him one dollar. It isn't the only time somebody did an ethnic impersonation for professional reasons, but its one of the funniest.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ward_churchill

Not to say he hasn't worked on behalf of Native Americans, but having Churchill's name attached to your source will
not increase its prestige.

I don't wish to attach any of this to your childhood friend, but I'm just telling you what the remark was about.

God :puke:

I'd find a different source...

Hawkeye-X

I happen to have respect for Ward Churchill.

Read "Fantasies of the Master Race" and tell me he is not Indian.

:kick:

:eyes:

Surely there must be a more credible source that that out there. :eyes:

It's been a long time since I looked into the story closely, but what it comes down to is that Peltier was tried separately from the other individuals, who were acquitted. There were close to 200 people involved in the gunfight; three were killed. The killing of one Native American who died by a sniper's bullet was never investigated.

But the FBI, which was very upset about the execution of two FBI agents at the scene, charged three people, including Peltier, with those killings. The first two guys were acquitted on self-defense.

Peltier fled to Canada and was picked up there after a woman he didn't know and who wasn't there filed a false affidavit saying she was his girlfriend and she saw him execute the agents.

Peltier was hauled before a Nixon-appointed judge in North Dakota. The false affidavit and resulting false extradition was not permitted to be entered into evidence, nor was the common knowledge that there was a war going on at Pine Ridge and that the FBI is suspected of presiding over 60 murders of American Indian Movement members on the Pine Ridge Reservation, through another group, the Guardians Of the Oglala Nation (the GOONs). Testifying agents changed their testimony from the previous trial in which the two other guys were acquitted, and that was not noted in the record. It later emerged that the FBI forced the testimony of a number of witnesses, withheld over 100,000 pages of documents, and concealed tests which showed that the gun casings at the execution scene did not match Peltier's rifle. Subsequent appeals were mostly denied or severely restricted.

The bottom line, if you ask me, is that the FBI was busy murdering AIM members at Pine Ridge, and finally got caught doing it. Two guys died for it and the FBI doesn't give a damn who did it, as long as someone rots in jail for it.

Someone has to do the time because if Peltier is ever released, the domestic murder campaign conducted by the GOONs and the FBI may become accepted fact, and we can't have that. We might begin to distrust our government.

Here's some links:

http://www.freeleonard.org/case/index.html
http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/Peltier.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Peltier

There is an excellent film, called "Incident at Oglala," which is well worth watching and which I think is available in its entirety here:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4219825247691110146

The backstory about the Pine Ridge War was also fictionalized into an okay film called "Thunderheart," starring Val Kilmer and Graham Greene. If you watch closely, you'll see my pals Frank Means and Duane Brewer in both films. One was an AIM and one was a GOON, but they now work together to try to get potable water piped onto the Pine Ridge Reservation. I've written about the Bush Administration's attempt to deny that water to the Oglalas here:

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/sofa%20king/81

Apparently the courts concluded that the FBI witnesses perjured themselves, coerced witnesses, and concealed evidence. But that was not enough to overturn the conviction?

http://www.noparolepeltier.com/court.html

The Supreme Court won't touch Peltier's case with a ten foot pole, denying cert any time one of his appeals comes their way.

Years ago I heard one tidbit which might be important. According to one source I knew, the FBI is telling everyone behind closed doors that they know Peltier did it, but they can't divulge how they know it. The only sort of proof like that I can imagine is film of the incident, which would raise the question of why the FBI was there to film the incident in the first place, when the incident is supposed to have been an accident. Or, they could be pulling the same gag the Air Force pulled in US v. Reynolds, claiming secret knowledge of the case when in fact they don't have shit and are merely gaming the system to their advantage.

Either way, the Peltier case is a classic example of federal conspiracy and cover-up, one which has succeeded so well that few people outside of the actual events can make guesses about what really happened. From my point of view, that alone is enough to let the guy go.

But there's another thing worth remembering, which is that the U.S. Court system is one medium through which American Indians have been exploited for over two hundred years. There is never real "justice" in Indian country. Peltier's case is just one of literally thousands of examples where the courts fall on the side of the white man despite evidence, precedent, and the law itself.

i second the recommend of incident at oglala

It amazes me how many people still fall for the FBI story. Like they couldn't possibly be lying! The fact that he used a different type of gun should be enough.

pdf document available at:
http://lpdctexas.blogspot.com/2007/12/legal-update-regarding-eighth-circuit.html

This is hardly unexpected, though.

He won't be freed unless he outlives the FBI agents who framed him.

:grr:

:thumbsdown:

Can you say CoIntelPro, children?

speechless

So they arrested Leonard.

Wonder if the real killer is still out there.

i would be surprised if the shooter is still alive, we can't hope there will ever be a confession now

peltier (to me) appears to be a scapegoat and the chance of finding the real shooter almost nil now

imagine a "cold case" series on teevee where instead of the old guys being found out, the old guys had already been dead 20 years

the average lifespan in pine ridge-sd was something like the mid 40s

The whole bit about average lifespan being 40 is deceptive. It means that many, many die in childhood. usually, if you get into your twenties, you'll live to 65 or 70. This is true in the middle ages as today. Average lifespan doesn't mean most people die in their 40's. It means a helluva lot of kids die before age ten.

:grr:

16 years since his last hearing (1993) and now 15 years until the next?

All questions of guilt and innocence aside, the terms of his incarceration seem cruel and unusual in itself, especially when compared to other, far more horrendous prisoners. Criminy, that piece of shit so foul they doubled his name, Sirhan, gets reviewed every three years.

the Feds are even bigger fucked up motherfuckers than the state after 35 years of republican mother fuckers making the laws...

Especially that best republican money can buy -- motherfucker bill clinton -- with his fucked up "effective death penalty" bullshit!

you fuck with the feds you are over................kill 200 people in a plane or Israeli athletes in Munich and you go free!

Guess PIG lives are more valuable than civilians.

That SUCKS! Wish there were something that the Pres. could do. Could he pardon him??? or is it just a State thing?

:(

In 1998 Drew returned home to Bismarck, where he worked until late 2001, when he was nominated by President Bush and confirmed by the United States Senate as North Dakota’s 17th United States Attorney.
http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/nd/usabio.html

thank you

Silence, they say, is the voice of complicity.
But silence is impossible.
Silence screams.
Silence is a message,
just as doing nothing is an act.
Let who you are ring out & resonate
in every word & every deed.
Yes, become who you are.
There's no sidestepping your own being
or your own responsibility.
What you do is who you are.
You are your own comeuppance.
You become your own message.
You are the message.

In the Spirit of Crazy Horse

http://www.leonardpeltier.net/

But for some reason has chosen not to.

:(

commute the sentence. Obama isn't stupid and it intuitive that he has determined how a pardon or commutation would affect his agenda. The uproar over the Lybian terrorist's release serves as an indicator how it would be perceived by the US population. Don't expect any action on this other than "The President is aware of the situation and intends to take no action without a recommendation from the US Pardon Attorney and Attorney General."

Do you not remember the protest of FBI agents outside the White House at the mere possibility that Clinton would grant his petition for pardon????


HUNDREDS of them...and Freeh went apeshit.


Does Obama need that kind of crap right now?

The Bush Administration holdovers on the U.S. Parole Commission today

adopted the position of the FBI that anyone who may be implicated in the

killings of its agents should never be paroled and should be left to die in

prison. Despite judicial determinations that the unrepentant FBI fabricated

evidence and presented perjured testimony in Leonard Peltier's prosecution;

despite a jury's acquittal on grounds of self-defense of two co-defendants

who were found to have engaged in the same conduct of which Mr. Peltier was

convicted; despite Mr. Peltier's exemplary record during his incarceration

for more than 33 years and his clearly demonstrated eligibility for parole;

despite letters and petitions calling for his release submitted by millions

of people in this country and around the world including one of the judges

who ruled on his earlier appeals; and despite his advanced age and

deteriorating health, the Parole Commission today informed Mr. Peltier that

his "release on parole would depreciate the seriousness of your offenses and

would promote disrespect for the law," and set a reconsideration hearing in

July 2024. This is the extreme action of the same law enforcement community

that brought us the indefinite imprisonment of suspected teenage terrorists,

tortures, and killings in CIA prisons around the world and promoted

widespread disrespect for the democratic concepts of justice upon which this

country supposedly was founded. These are the same institutions that have

never treated indigenous peoples with dignity or respect or accepted any

responsibility for centuries of intolerence and abuse. At his parole hearing

on July 28th, Leonard Peltier expressed regret and accepted responsibility

for his role in the incident in which the two FBI agents and one Native

American activist died as the result of a shootout on the Pine Ridge

Reservation. Mr. Peltier emphasized that the shootout occurred in

circumstances where there literally was a war going on between corrupt

tribal leaders, supported by the government, on the one hand, and Native

American traditionalists and young activists on the other. He again denied

-- as he has always denied -- that he intended the deaths of anyone or that

he fired the fatal shots that killed the two agents, and he reminded the

hearing officer that one of his former co-defendants recently admitted to

having fired the fatal shots, himself. Accordingly, it is not true that

Leonard Peltier participated in "the execution style murders of two FBI

agents," as the Parole Commission asserts, and there never has been credible

evidence of Mr. Peltier's responsibility for the fatal shots as the FBI

continues to allege. Moreover, given the corrupt practices of the FBI,

itself, it is entirely untrue that Leonard Peltier's parole at this juncture

will in any way "depreciate the seriousness" of his conduct and/or "promote

disrespect for the law." We will continue to seek parole and clemency for

Mr. Peltier and to eventually bring this prolonged injustice to a prompt and

fair resolution.

http://www.whoisleonardpeltier.info/PELTIER_ATTORNEY_RESPONSE_TO_PAROLE_DENIAL.htm

innocence and he is still imprisoned.

I guess it was okay to bomb a jumbo jet intentionally and kill hundreds of people. You'll get a pass on that one if you're ill. But to be in the wrong place with circumstantial evidence is enough to put you away for life - even if you're ill. GOd bless America!

http://www.freepeltiernow.org/LEGAL/COINTELPRO.htm

...and 2 election reform heroes, well known here on DU, in our Election Reform Forum on Huffington Post


Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman
Posted: January 26, 2009 10:30 AM

President Obama Must Free Leonard Peltier

The welcome news that President Obama is taking steps to shut Guantanamo and right other Bush-era human rights abuses must quickly be joined by a proclamation of freedom for Leonard Peltier.

Peltier is the nation's best-known native activist and has become a global symbol of abject injustice and prison abuse. Imprisoned in the late 1970s for allegedly murdering two FBI agents, Peltier has never been given a fair trial. Federal authorities have quashed or destroyed thousands of pages of evidence that might have freed Peltier decades ago.

The Leonard Peltier Defense Offense Committee points out that

Amnesty International considers Leonard Peltier to be a political prisoner whose avenues of redress have long been exhausted... Amnesty International recognizes that a retrial is no longer a feasible option and believes that Leonard Peltier should be immediately and unconditionally released.

The committee adds that

Documents show that although the prosecution and government pointed the finger at Peltier for shooting FBI agents at close range during the trial in 1976, for three years the prosecution withheld critical ballistic test results proving that the fatal bullets could not have come from the gun tied to Leonard Peltier. This trial also denied evidence of self defense.

The committee further states that:

the U.S. Prosecutor, during subsequent oral arguments, stated: "we can't prove who shot those agents." And that the Eighth Circuit found that "There is a possibility that the jury would have acquitted Leonard Peltier had the records and data improperly withheld from the defense been available to him in order to better exploit and reinforce the inconsistencies casting strong doubts upon the government's case.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-fitrakis-and-harvey-wasserman/president-obama-must-free_b_160304.html

His imprisonment is a national disgrace.

k&R

God Damn that fucking Italian mother fucker who drew some lines on paper and lent his name to an artificial construct.

God Damn the European plunderers who fucked up their own continent and so had to come over and fuck up this one.

God Damn the hordes of white people who raped and pillaged this land and robbed this good man and his ancestors of a perfectly SUSTAINABLE way of living in harmony with Mother Earth.

God Damn the USAmerikan Imperial Government and it's owners, the Korporate Kapitalist Kleptomaniacs who continue to fuck up Mother Earth for short term gain.

God Damn the criminal-injustice system, the evil construct that enforces the destructive processes that continue to prop up the failed experiment in dominator hierarchy that's destroying the Earth and most inhabitants thereupon.

God Damn USAmerika and the fucking USAmerikan Empire...


:puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke:

Why is Leonard Peltier still in prison?

Michele Bollinger documents a cruel story of the American injustice system.

July 15, 2009

PELTIER WAS indicted along with two others in the 1975 shoot-out at the Jumping Bull property. His co-defendants, Bob Robideau and Dino Butler, represented by famed radical attorney William Kunstler, were acquitted on the basis of self-defense.

Humiliated by the not-guilty verdict for Robideau and Butler, the government went after Peltier with a vengeance. It lied, cheated and slammed the book on any sense of justice to ensure a conviction.

The Feds used three perjured affidavits to get Peltier extradited from Canada, to which he had escaped. During the trial itself, Peltier faced an all-white jury in North Dakota, where racism against Native Americans and hostility to AIM was palpable. The jury was unnecessarily sequestered and deliberately made to feel vulnerable by the judge. This same judge wouldn't allow Leonard's attorney's to argue self-defense.

Assistant U.S. attorney Lynn Crooks didn't produce any witnesses who could identify Peltier as the person who killed the agents. The government presented false evidence--the claim that only Peltier had the type of gun that killed the agents--and also concealed evidence showing that the gun they claimed Peltier used didn't match the bullet casings found near the agent's bodies.

Documents uncovered later through Freedom of Information Act requests revealed, among other things, that the judge met with the FBI before the trial began, and that the legal defense committee that emerged out of the Wounded Knee occupation had been infiltrated.

None of these facts are really contested by the federal government. In fact, at an appellate hearing in the 1980s, the government attorney conceded: "We had a murder, we had numerous shooters, we do not know who specifically fired what killing shots...we do not know, quote unquote, who shot the agents."

http://socialistworker.org/2009/07/15/why-is-peltier-in-prison

This is disgusting on a level that no words can adequately or accurately describe.



:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:



And it will happen again, unless those charged with upholding the law on all levels are subject to equal or greater penalties for abusing thier authority, and it is enforced with ZERO tolerance.

I'd like to know more about this case from unbiased sources (Mr. Peltier's own website does not fit the definition of 'unbiased').

Is it at all possible that he killed the two FBI agents? I'm just wondering... sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

who denied a request for a new trial, and who later supported Peltier for clemency.

While he denied Peltier's request, he is also quoted on Peltier sites approvingly, asking for clemency.

http://openjurist.org/800/f2d/772

edited to add the comfirmation of conviction, which has an excellent summary of the core evidence used at trial.

http://openjurist.org/585/f2d/314

I've found a lot of pro-Peltier sites misstate the evidence, the legal arguments, and the legal position of Peltier--so I suggest this original source material. The Bagley standard is pretty clear, and he didn't meet it. Further, the extractor test stands.

You might also want to read up on the case of Ana Mae Pictou-Aquash, and Paul DeMain's work on the subject. Certainly, there are muddy waters about this case, and no clear answer.

For myself, I look at Peltier's own accounts, which have varied.