Dear Supporters:
In a recent post begging, as usual, for more cash and accompanied this time with a video, Peltier is falling way short of his goal to pay his attorneys for work on possible parole, transfer to another facility, clemency and his Washington State case.
By Peltier’s account the money-well is all but dried up, but at least he’s not claiming that donations are ‘tax deductible.’ Maybe Peltier finally learned a lesson from the IRS (Footnote 1). However, there is still a lingering allusion from Peltier’s message that the convicted felon appears to be running a business from federal prison and we have to wonder if taxes are being paid on these donations.
Peltier has to ask himself what happened to all his prior attorneys. Many in the beginning and during lengthy appeals were paid by the largesse of the American taxpayer. Many provided pro bono support, without success, and with little gratitude from Peltier. The latest ones apparently want their billable hours covered.
As for a transfer to a prison closer to the Turtle Mountain Reservation, does Peltier really need an attorney? He can make his request directly to the Bureau of Prisons.
Parole? Although entitled to parole review hearings every two years, most of which he declined to pursue, it was evident from his 2009 hearing at Lewisburg that the Parole Commission has little sympathy for a convicted double murderer and flopped him for fifteen years, which brings him at least to July 2024. (Fn. 2)
James Reynolds; A closer look
Peltier offered that “Even the former US Attorney James Reynolds has called for Leonard’s release.”
Reynolds certainly had the right to express his opinion about Peltier and clemency. However, his public statements remain severely inaccurate. Reynolds claimed that he had “directed” the appellate process, though, in reality, while allegedly doing so, in some abnormal and bizarre manner Reynolds crossed both State lines and federal judicial boundaries.
No one is saying that Reynolds lied about his connection to the Peltier case but his actual involvement, according to the record of Peltier’s prosecution, clearly demonstrates that Reynolds either utterly exaggerated his perceived authority, unequivocally misremembered or just did not care about what actually occurred.
The facts speak for themselves and support that Reynolds’s claim of “directing” the Peltier prosecution is a “gross misstatement of the record,” and that there was “no conversation of any kind,” and that Reynolds “contributed nothing what-so-ever to what went into the final brief on Direct Appeal or into any of the subsequent government briefs resisting Peltier’s numerous attempts to obtain Post Conviction Relief.”
Peltier and the ILPDC are invited to review the actual events and facts concerning Reynolds public statements. Reynolds, the actual interloper, offered unsupportable public comments that bordered on the extreme. (Fn. 3)
* * *
In the accompanying video in Peltier’s latest missive, Harry Belafonte said it best, “Leonard Peltier is a forgotten story.”
But the memory of Jack Coler and Ron Williams certainly is not.
“In the Spirit of Coler and Williams”
Ed Woods
Footnotes:
1) Tax-deductible issues: http://wwwnoparolepeltiercom-justice.blogspot.com/2017/10/peltier-tax-deductible-legal-issues.html
2) Parole hearing; Lewisburg http://www.noparolepeltier.com/debate.html#paroledenied
3) Reynolds:
Part 1, Three part series regarding the facts and the alleged authority Reynolds claimed in the Peltier case: http://wwwnoparolepeltiercom-justice.blogspot.com/2017/01/peltier-reynolds-false-claims.html
Part II: http://wwwnoparolepeltiercom-justice.blogspot.com/2017/12/james-reynolds-part-ii-letters-public.html
