Leonard Peltier's Petition for Executive Clemency And/Or
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LEONARD PELTIER’S PETITION FOR EXECUTIVE CLEMENCY AND/OR COMMUTATION OF SENTENCE (Meeting with Pardon Attorney and White House Staff Requested) Martin Garbus 3 Park Avenue New York , New York 10016 Cynthia K. Dunne 14 Edgewood Road Scarsdale, NY 10583 (914) 522-2569 (former Assistant U.S. Attorney, SDNY) Carl S. Nadler Arnold & Porter LLP 601 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W. Washington, DC 20001-3743 Dated: February 17, 2016 TABLE OF CONTENTS TAB A (Petition) I. Remorse................................................................................................................................... 3 II. Mitigating Circumstances........................................................................................................ 4 A. My Background ................................................................................................................... 4 B. My Age, Health and Safety Concerns.................................................................................. 5 C. My Art and Charitable Efforts. ............................................................................................ 6 D. Release Plans ....................................................................................................................... 9 E. Other Mitigating Factors.................................................................................................... 10 III. The Historic Landscape At the Time of My Trial ................................................................. 13 A. Pine Ridge Reservation in the 1970s ................................................................................. 14 B. The 1973 Occupation of Wounded Knee........................................................................... 15 C. Means and Banks Trials..................................................................................................... 17 D. The Reign of Terror – Pine Ridge a Murder Capital ......................................................... 18 IV. The Events of June 26, 1975 and Subsequent Investigation ................................................. 20 A. June 26, 1975 ..................................................................................................................... 20 B. The FBI’s Investigative Actions Following the Deaths of Agents Coler and Williams 22 C. The Butler and Robideau Acquittals.................................................................................. 25 D. My Extradition From Canada on False Affidavits............................................................. 27 E. My Trial in Fargo, North Dakota....................................................................................... 29 V. Post-Trial Proceedings........................................................................................................... 34 A. Appeal to the Eighth Circuit .............................................................................................. 34 B. FOIA Documents Provide Exculpatory Evidence ............................................................. 36 C. Habeas Proceedings ........................................................................................................... 37 1. First Habeas ................................................................................................................... 37 2. Second Habeas............................................................................................................... 41 D. Parole Proceedings............................................................................................................. 41 VI. CONCLUSION ..................................................................................................................... 42 A. My Conduct in Prison. ....................................................................................................... 42 B. Relief Requested ................................................................................................................ 43 EXHIBITS Exhibit Number Medical Summaries………………………………………………………………………………1 Selected Letters of Support……………………………………………………………………….2 Nobel Women's Initiative (including Nobel Laureates Mairead Maguire, Adolfo Perez Esquivel, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Rigoberto Menchú Tum, Jody Williams, Shirin Ebadi, and Tawakkol Karman Nobel Laureate Betty Williams Rigoberto Menchú Tum Coretta Scott King The Dalai Lama Amnesty International S. James Anaya Crow Creek Sioux Tribe Ho-Chunk Nation Native American Rights Fund National Congress of American Indians St. Regis Mohawk Tribe United South and Eastern Tribes Great Lakes Inter-Tribal Council National Indian Brotherhood William F. Muldrow A.J. Muste Memorial Institute Members of Congress Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights The Rainbow Coalition National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA American Friends Service Committee Chicago Religious Leadership Network on Latin America Franciscan Renewal Center United Methodist Advocacy Board Archbishop of Canterbury Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns Center for Constitutional Rights National Lawyers Guild Release Plans……………………………………………………………………………………3 Historical Exhibits…………………………………………………………………………..4-33 TAB B (Petition for Commutation Form) LEONARD PELTIER’S PETITION FOR EXECUTIVE CLEMENCY AND/OR COMMUTATION OF SENTENCE “T]he FBI used improper tactics in securing Peltier’s extradition from Canada and in otherwise investigating and trying the Peltier case. Although our court [the 8th Circuit] decided that these actions were not grounds for reversal, they are, in my view, factors that merit consideration in any petition for leniency filed . We as a nation must treat Native Americans more fairly . Favorable action by the President in the Leonard Peltier case would be an important step in this regard.” -- Eighth Circuit Judge Gerald Heaney’s Letter to Senator Daniel Inouye, Chair Senate Committee on Indian Affairs (Apr. 18, 1991). **** “[W]e find that the prosecution withheld evidence from the defense favorable to Peltier, and that had this evidence been available to the defendant it would have allowed him to cross-examine certain government witnesses more effectively…” -- Hon. Gerald Heaney, United States v. Peltier, 800 F.2d 772, 775 (8th Cir. 1986). **** “Much of the government’s behavior at the Pine Ridge Reservation and in its prosecution of Mr. Peltier is to be condemned. The government withheld evidence. It intimidated witnesses. These facts are not disputed.” -- Per Curiam Judges Seymour, Anderson and Brorby, Peltier v. Booker, 348 F.3d 888, 896 (10th Cir. 2003). **** “The use of the affidavits of Myrtle Poor Bear in the extradition proceedings [of Leonard Peltier from Canada to the U.S.] was, to say the least, a clear abuse of the investigative process by the F.B.I.” -- Hon. Donald Ross, United States v. Peltier, 585 F.2d 314, 335 n.18 (8th Cir. 1978). **** I, LEONARD PELTIER, submit this Petition for Executive Clemency and the commutation of my sentences to the more than 40 years I have now served, to permit me to spend my last years at home on the Turtle Mountain Reservation. I am 71 years old, in poor health and I am one of the oldest prisoners at the USP Coleman 1, a maximum security federal prison located in Coleman, Florida. To the best of my attempt to reconstruct my term of incarceration, I have spent more than five years of my prison term in solitary confinement.1 On April 19, 1977, I was convicted by a jury in Fargo North Dakota of the murders of FBI Special Agents Jack R. Coler and Ronald A. Williams, and was sentenced to two consecutive life sentences. I was later sentenced to seven consecutive years for my escape from federal prison and for the possession of a weapon. I have exhausted all appeals pertaining to my convictions and am next eligible to apply for a full parole hearing in 2024, if I live that long. The murder convictions arise out of a shoot-out that occurred on the Jumping Bull property in Oglala, on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, on June 26, 1975. Along with many other American Indians who were present that day, I fired shots in the direction of men whom I later learned were federal agents. At the end of a period of extended gunfire, three men lay dead: Special Agents Jack R. Coler and Ronald A. Williams, and American Indian Joe Stuntz. 1 During periods of solitary confinement, I often spent 23 hours of the day alone in a small cell, without any human interaction. Even in the one hour of release, I had little opportunity to interact with anyone. I was allowed telephone contact on a very limited basis, often restricted to one call per week. Over the years I was placed in solitary confinement for a number of reasons including: medical transfers, pending internal prison investigations, safety concerns, rules infractions and awaiting prison facility transfers. In the decades since I started serving my sentence, the United Nations Human Rights Committee, the United Nations Committee against Torture and both the current and former United Nations Special Rapporteurs on Torture have concluded that solitary confinement like I experienced may amount to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment that violates human rights. While solitary confinement has never been held to be a per se Eight Amendment violation in the U.S, Courts, Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy recently acknowledged that extended “near-total isolation exact[s] a terrible price;” quoting Dostoyevsky, he said: “The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.”