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Wrongful Conviction
In March 1977, Leonard Peltier stood
trial in Fargo, North Dakota. According to the government, the case
was originally assigned to the federal district court in Sioux
Falls, where Judge Nichol (see
Wounded Knee) would have
presided. When Nichol excused himself, the case was assigned to
Judge Paul Benson who removed the trial to Fargo.
It should be noted that, in December
1982, attorney William Kunstler discovered in a telephone
conversation with Judge Edward McManus (who had presided over the
Butler-Robideau trial) that McManus, not Benson, had been scheduled
to try the Peltier case. He had been astonished, he said, to find
himself arbitrarily removed in favor of Judge Benson. To this day,
it is not clear how McManus' removal was accomplished or by whom
specifically. There appears to have been a concerted effort,
however, to prevent the involvement of judges in Peltier's trial who
had previously made rulings in favor of defendants in the
government's prosecutions of other members of the American Indian
Movement (AIM).
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), as it had done during the
Butler-Robideau trial, spread
rumors about anticipated "terrorist" attacks by AIM members that
built tensions in an already anti-Indian environment.
It was later discovered that the FBI
met secretly with Judge Benson prior to trial. There are no notes of
these meetings but, not surprisingly, Judge Benson's subsequent
rulings were made almost always in favor of the prosecution.
Documents discovered after the trial
also revealed that the FBI had informants in the Wounded Knee Legal
Defense/Offense Committee at or about the time of Leonard’s capture
(a critical time, i.e., while a defense was being mounted).* The
government has refused to divulge the identities of the informants.
Infiltration of the defense team would have meant that the
prosecution received first-hand information concerning the defense,
a clear violation of Leonard's constitutional rights.
Jury selection, completed in only one
day, resulted in an all
white jury of ten women and four men, two of whom were alternates.
They were sequestered for the duration of the trial. Never in any
danger, they nevertheless were made to feel vulnerable to attack.
They were transported to the court house in a bus where the windows
had been taped over and escorted by Special Weapons And Tactics
(SWAT) team members at all times.
The government presented fifteen days
of evidence to the jury after which the defense presented six days
of evidence. However, due to frequent rulings in the prosecution's
favor, the jury actually heard only two and one-half days
of the defense case.
On April 19, 1977, after 11 hours of
deliberation, the jury returned a verdict of guilty.
What became evident much later is that
the government committed fraud on the
court and violated Leonard's constitutional right to a fair
trial by withholding evidence, presenting false evidence, and
intimidating witnesses into committing perjury.
Ballistics Evidence
Critical
ballistics evidence that reflected Leonard Peltier’s innocence was
withheld during his trial. Specifically, the ballistics expert for the
FBI, Evan Hodge, testified
that he had been unable to perform the best test, a firing pin test, on
certain casings found near Agent Coler's car because the rifle in question
had been damaged in a fire. Instead, he stated that he had conducted an
extractor mark test and found the casing and weapon to match.
Years later,
documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) showed
that, in October 1975, a firing pin ballistics test had indeed been
performed on the rifle and that the results were clearly negative. In short,
the fatal bullets did not come from the weapon alleged to have been
fired by Leonard Peltier. It should
also be made very clear that the AR-15 and FBI-issued M-16 deliver
the same .223 caliber round. However, the jury never heard about
any of these crucial issues.
More
On a related matter, SA Fred
Coward testified that he was able to see Peltier at the site of
the shoot-out, some 700 feet away, using the telescopic lens on his
rifle. The defense attorneys duplicated this sighting and
found it to be impossible. However, Judge Benson would not allow a test of the
claim in court. Coward's testimony was allowed into evidence
and
used as a basis to support Peltier’s conviction.
The Pickup Truck
Equally disturbing are the numerous
discrepancies regarding the key vehicle in the case.
Agents Williams and Coler had radioed that they were
chasing a "red pick up truck" which they believed was transporting a
suspect. The chase led to the Jumping Bull Ranch and the fatal shoot-out. At
trial, however, the evidence had changed to describe a "red and white van,"
quite a different vehicle and which, not coincidentally, was more easily
linked to Leonard Peltier.
Witnesses
No known witnesses exist as to the actual shooting of FBI Agents Coler
and
Williams. Three adolescents gave inconclusive and vague testimonies
at Peltier's trial,
contradicting their own earlier statements, as well as each other. All
three witnesses admitted they had been seriously threatened and intimidated
by FBI agents.
The court, at Leonard Peltier’s trial, did
not permit the jury to learn of the FBI’s pattern and practice of
using false affidavits and intimidating witnesses in recent related
cases against other members of the American Indian Movement. The jury was thus unable to properly evaluate
the credibility of prosecution witnesses’ testimony.
The Prosecution's Case
There was no witness testimony that Leonard Peltier shot the two
FBI agents.
There was no witness testimony that placed Leonard Peltier near
the scene before the agents' deaths occurred. Those witnesses
placing Peltier, Robideau, and Butler near the scene after the
killing were coerced and intimidated by the FBI.
There was no forensic
evidence as to the exact type of rifle that caused the fatal injuries of
the agents. Several
different weapons present in the area during the shoot-out—evidence now
shows that there were other AR-15 rifles in the area—could have caused
the fatal injuries. In addition, the AR-15 rifle claimed to be Leonard Peltier’s weapon was found to be incompatible with the bullet casing
allegedly found near Agent Coler’s car (according to the FBI's documents, by two different agents on two
different days). Although other bullets were fired at
the crime scene, no other casings or evidence about them were offered by
the prosecutor in this case.
In short, there was/is no reasonable evidence
that Leonard Peltier committed the crimes for which he was convicted. Instead there is very strong evidence of FBI
and prosecutorial misconduct.
Comparison of the Two Trials
By 1977, Leonard Peltier was the only remaining individual the FBI
could blame for the deaths of the two agents. The charges against
Jimmy Eagle had been dropped—the government stipulated that he was not on the reservation on the day of the firefight. (However,
FBI documents later revealed that the government decided to
dismiss charges against Eagle so that "the full prosecutive
weight of the Federal Government could be directed against
Leonard Peltier.") Dino Butler
and Bob Robideau were acquitted in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in July 1976.
The Butler-Robideau trial had
uncovered much FBI misconduct, such as tampering with witnesses and
evidence, perjury, counterintelligence-type activities and tactics
used against AIM, and substantial evidence indicating there was a
full scale paramilitary assault on Pine Ridge by the FBI and other
law enforcement officials on the day in question. The jury as a
result concluded that Butler and Robideau were acting in
self-defense.
Peltier's defense team had this same
evidence and more. Yet they would never be be able to present a major
portion of it to the jury.
The government clearly was determined
to convict Peltier and succeeded.
Leonard Peltier was found guilty not because he was guilty, but
because crucial aspects of his trial were manipulated to favor the
prosecution and, consequently, cause a conviction.
Click here to review a table that briefly points out the
differences between the two trials. Also included in the table are
direct quotations from a FBI report on the Butler-Robideau trial dated July 20, 1976, which analyzed the "reasons why
[the] jury found the defendants Robideau and Butler not guilty on
July 16, 1976." We recommend that you compare this FBI study to the subsequent rulings at
Peltier's Fargo trial (Trial Transcript).
*This was not a unique occurrence.
During the 1974 Wounded Knee trial of Dennis Banks and Russell Means, an
informant who had direct knowledge of the defense case was exposed.
The government had vehemently denied to Judge Nichol that any such
informant existed. |
