Dear Supporters:
Continuing the review and critique of Peltier’s Letter to
the President and clemency application, it’s unthinkable that his attorneys,
Martin Garbus, Cynthia Dunne and Carl Nadler believe that making these documents
public would be of any benefit to Peltier.
It’s evident they have blindly bought into the myth and
folklore and believe that the USDOJ Pardon Attorney, Attorney General, and the
President are unaware of the facts or unable to easily see through the subterfuge
of providing half-truths. Garbus, Et. Al., do this because telling the whole
story is devastating to Peltier. But the record will be set straight here. Perhaps
Peltier should ask for a refund and Garbus, Dunne and Nadler could form a new
law firm representing
political prisoners
who drive ambulances.
[i]
The “…notoriously convoluted procedural history…” of the
Peltier matter will end in failure on January 20, 2017.
[ii]
They begin the Application with four bullet points that
are readily dispelled:
1) “The FBI used
improper tactics securing Peltier’s extradition from Canada and in otherwise
investigating and trying the Peltier case.”(Quoting from Judge Gerald
Heaney’s 1991 letter to Senator Inouye. See the previous NPPA Blog regarding
this letter.)
In complete deference to the late Judge Heaney (please
see the Judge Heaney sections of this Editorial Essay
[iii]),
and let it be clear that he was passionate in his beliefs and support of Native
Americans, however, he ruled against Peltier based on the facts and the law in
every instance.
But the Honorable Judge was ultimately wrong on the
extradition.
This is some of the dirty laundry Peltier and his
attorneys want to keep out of sight, or hope that everyone is tone deaf to all
the Peltier history, like the two-decades long and only alibi that turned into
a horrendous lie, Mr. X; the armed escape from Lompoc, and of course, the four
page October 12, 1999 letter from the Canadian Minister of Justice A. Anne
McLellen to the U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno, where the entire extradition
process was reviewed and concluded with:
“
As I indicated
above, I have concluded that Mr. Peltier was
lawfully extradited to the United States. In my opinion, given the test for
committal for extradition referred to above, the circumstantial evidence
presented at the extradition hearing, taken
alone, constituted sufficient evidence to justify Mr. Peltier’s committal
on the two murder charges. My conclusions in this regard are consistent with the arguments made by
Department of Justice counsel before both the Federal Court of Appeal and the
Supreme Court of Canada.”
[iv]
(Emphasis added)
In other words, if this concept isn’t lost on the legal
scholars, even without Myrtle Poor Bear, Peltier was subject to extradition.
2) “[We] 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…”
Nice try, but Judge Heaney’s decision says a lot more
about the evidence and Peltier than that single quote, and everyone is
encouraged to read it in its entirety.
This decision related to; an October 2, 1975 FBI
Laboratory teletype that was not turned over to the defense, another appeal, a
remand back to the District Court for a three-day evidentiary “ballistics”
hearing, and the precise meaning of the teletype. Peltier was denied and appealed
again to the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Central to the ballistics hearing and appeal was Peltier’s
possession of the only AR-15 among the AIM members that June day and the
extractor marks matching from that weapon to a shell casing found in the trunk
of Agent Coler’s Bureau vehicle.
Reviewing Peltier’s conviction, Judge Heaney stated “We then held that the evidence was
sufficient for the jury to find Peltier responsible
for the murders.” (Emphasis added)
Judge Heaney reviewed the evidentiary hearing and trial
record and concluded “Yet we are bound by
the Bagley test requiring that we be convinced, from a review of the entire record, that had the data and
records withheld been made available, the jury probably would have reached a
different result. We have not been so
convinced.” (Emphasis added.)
Before reaching this conclusion Judge Heaney made perhaps
one of the most critical and damning conclusions to Peltier’s credibility,
claims of not receiving a fair trial, and alleged innocence:
“
When all is said
and done, however, a few simple but very
important facts remain. The casing introduced into evidence had in fact been extracted from the
Wichita (Peltier’s) AR-15. This point was not disputed; although the defense
had its own ballistics expert, it offered no contrary evidence.”(Emphasis
added)
[v]
3) “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.”
Would it come as a surprise to Messrs. Garbus that this
comment had nothing to do with Peltier’s conviction?
This quote comes from the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals
in 2003 when Peltier filed a motion for a Writ of Habeas Corpus seeking
immediate release on parole and challenged the record before the U.S. Parole
Commission. In other words, it had nothing to do with the underlying conviction
for murder, although, the 10th Circuit was entitled to its
unsolicited and gratuitous opinion.
But, and of course omitted by Marty, just prior to this rebuke the same
appellate court said:
"
Previous
federal court decisions provided the (Parole) Commission with ample facts
to support its conviction that Peltier
personally shot Agent Coler and Williams." And further
, "While Mr. Peltier, asserts 'the
Commission identified no plausible evidence that [he] shot the agents after
they were incapacitated,' this statement is simply not true. The evidence linking Mr. Peltier to
these crimes is enumerated above. The most damning evidence, the .223
shell casing found in Agent Coler's trunk, may be more equivocal after the
surfacing of the October 2nd teletype, but it has not been 'ruled out,' as Mr.
Peltier contends. There is no direct evidence that Mr. Peltier shot the agents
because no one testified they saw him pull the trigger. But as we stated above,
and restate here, the body of circumstantial evidence underlying the
Commission's decision is sufficient for the purpose of rational basis review.”
(Emphasis added)
[vi]
So here, one court that was critical of the government found again
a rational basis to deny Peltier's claims and further support his conviction
and sentencing. Those criticisms have all been microscopically examined in
excruciating detail over the years and were determined to have not created any
Constitutional violations of Peltier's rights; even after twice reaching the
U.S. Supreme Court.
4) “The use of the
affidavits of Myrtle Poor Bear in the extradition proceedings was, to say the
least, a clear abuse of the investigative process of the F.B.I.”
So critical was this comment by the court that it was
relegated to a…footnote.
Standing alone, and proffered by Peltier and his
attorneys, since it was first published in the denial of his direct appeal of
his conviction in 1978, this is a damning statement and was used to incite
Peltier supporters against the Government. However, they failed to finish the
quote which placed it in complete context within the record:
"This was
conceded by government counsel on the hearing in this court. It does not,
however, follow that the testimony of this obviously confused and
'unbelievable' witness (referring to Myrtle Poor Bear) should have been permitted under either theory advanced by Peltier as
hereinbefore set forth." [vii]
NO LESS IRONIC, and tucked away in the record, was
Peltier's own attorney's opinion of Myrtle Poor Bear when they believed
the Government would call Poor Bear as a witness. They characterized her
as a:
"…
witness
whose mental imbalance is so gross as to render her testimony
unbelievable." [viii]
In other words, Peltier wanted it both ways; using Poor
Bear as an excuse for his allegedly improper extradition from Canada, but then
castigating her when she was a potential witness.
But it gets better. This same court on the direct appeal
stated;
“
Secondly, the
direct and circumstantial evidence of Peltier’s
guilt was strong, and in our opinion, the admission of these additional
exhibits did not prejudice the defendant’s chances for acquittal.”
(Emphasis added)
[ix]
To
make it clear that the USDOJ Pardon Attorney has all the relevant facts regarding
Peltier’s guilt and the sham of forty years of myth and folklore and his
outrageously unrepentant public statements, what follows are quotes from
letters received by the NPPA from the U.S. Pardon Attorney:
January
12, 2010: “For your information, Mr. Peltier’s application was carefully
considered in this Department and the White House, and the decision was reached
that favorable action was not warranted. His application was therefore denied
on January 19, 2009.”
“Your
correspondence has be made a permanent
part of Mr. Peltier’s clemency file. Thank you for writing to the
President.”
January
13, 2012: “Please be advised that to date, Mr. Peltier has not reapplied for
executive clemency. Your letter will be retained and added to any case file created in the event that Mr. Peltier
re-applies for executive clemency in the
future.”
So, notwithstanding the bogus current clemency
application, the truth and facts are already where they belong.
Dear President Obama:
If Leonard
Peltier’s clemency application should ever reach your desk, please weigh it in
regard to just two of Peltier’s many public statements concerning the
unprovoked attack and brutal murders of two federal agents, “And really, if necessary, I’d do it all over
again because it was the right thing to do (2010),” and, “I don’t regret any of this for a minute (2014).”
“In the Spirit of Coler and Williams”
Ed Woods
[i]
One possibility; the firm of Dewey, Fleeceum and Howe, 69 Moodnlight Road,
Mound House, NV 89706
