UPDATE: News broke Wednesday afternoon that President Obama has denied clemency for Leonard Peltier.
A senior US attorney who was involved in the prosecution of Native American activist Leonard Peltier has requested that Barack Obama grant clemency, with a rare plea that has energized the campaign to free the high-profile indigenous prisoner.
James Reynolds, who supervised a key part of the case against Peltier, who claims he was wrongfully convicted of the 1975 murders of two FBI agents, wrote to the president that clemency for the 72-year-old would be “in the best interest of justice in considering the totality of all matters involved”.
“There seems to be no point in taxpayers paying his room and board,” Reynolds, 77, said by phone on Wednesday. “It’s time to call it quits.”
Until Standing Rock, there was no more celebrated a cause in modern Indian Country than the effort to free Chippewa activist and militant Leonard Peltier, who was convicted — many think wrongly — in the killing of two FBI agents, Ronald Williams and Jack Coler during a shootout on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota.
Ronald Williams and Jack Coler were wounded in a firefight, then executed at close range with shots from an AR-15. They died hard.
Peltier was part of the militant American Indian Movement (AIM) and his case became a political lightning rod. Depending on where you stand, he’s either an innocent man railroaded by a system determined to crush militant civil rights movements, or a cop-killing criminal gangster/terrorist who got what was coming to him (or less).
The truth of the matter will forever remain murky, in large part because of the emotion invested on all sides in regards to Peltier’s fate.
Years ago, I delved pretty deeply into the case. I read Peter Matthiessen’s tome In the Spirit of Crazy Horse, which portrayed Peltier in a sympathetic light and exposed significant problems with the investigation and trial that led to his conviction. And I read Scott Anderson’s incisive piece in Outside Magazine that pulled on the strings and largely unraveled the case for Peltier’s innocence.
Read Anderson’s piece here, and Matthiessen’s angry response here. They’re long, and it’ll take some time and attention. It’s worth it on a number of levels, not least in causing you to ponder how difficult it is to discern facts and truth when symbols and myth come into play.
Where do I stand? I have great respect for the late Matthiessen, but he is an advocate and a novelist. In the Spirit of Crazy Horse is fascinating but it is deeply flawed by the author’s willingness to gloss the more sordid aspects of AIM, and the metaconspiracy that lies at its heart has been pretty thoroughly debunked. Not that that matters to those for whom it’s the definitive version of events…
Anderson is a real-deal reporter and I believe he went where the facts took him.
His work and his track record speak for themselves. He’s not in the tank for anyone. And the facts point to Peltier’s complicity, at least, in the killings. Anderson is not unsympathetic to Peltier (much more sympathetic to Peltier than to Matthiessen, in fact) and notes that Peltier’s martyr status has probably actually impeded his ability to leave prison.
Which leads us back to the original question: Should President Obama offer executive clemency? I have truly mixed feelings here. I can’t help but remember that, through the vagaries of the criminal justice system, Claude Dallas served less time for a no-less-brutal killing of two game wardens. Treat the Indians the same as the cowboys, right? Peltier was caught up in a wild time in a wild place that was embroiled in what amounted to a civil war. To my mind that does mitigate, to a degree.
I believe that Peltier was there and participated in the firefight. I wish I could know more. If Peltier walked down a hill and shot Williams in the face as he lay helpless against his car, then delivered the coup de grace to Coler, he should die in prison. He should have been dead already. That was a brutal and cold-blooded execution of defenseless men. Even in war, that would be regarded as a capital crime. If he participated in a firefight, and another man committed the execution by AR-15, well, maybe clemency does serve justice. Maybe it is time to call it quits on a story that will forever be enshrouded in myth.
Leonard Peltier, 72, is running out of time.
thom Eley says
Interesting article. I’ve had the “pleasure” of working with (not for) the FBI, Secret Service and U.S. Marshals. It has been my experience that someone is going to pay and it ain’t going to be the agency. I think of Pine Ridge, Waco, Malheur and others. There always is a sheen of doubt over the incident. We, the people, just get an executive summary of what has transpired. I have worked with some great folks from the FBI, Secret Service, and Marshals, including the FBI agent that was a game warden in the Owyhee Country and was replaced by the two wardens that were killed. I think that we have so much distrust for our government, we don’t know who or what to believe.
JimC says
Gonna have to hear some more of your stories on Owyhee warden. The Dallas case has fascinated me for decades.
In Peltier’s case, the Feds’ behavior actually helped ensure that the facts will never be determined for sure. And you are right to point out that they have acted either precipitously or flat wrongly at Waco and possibly with the Finicum shooting during the Malheur occupation (I think the shooting itself was righteous, but there seems to be some shenanigans with covering up who fired). You could add Ruby Ridge to the list, too.
I do not buy that Peltier is an innocent man or a fall guy, however. “They framed a guilty man” is not out of the question here. The letter requesting clemency walks right up to the edge of admitting guilt. Again — guilt of what matters. If he executed those agents, then he doesn’t deserve clemency; if he didn’t I can see it. The fact that a former U.S. Attorney is advocating for clemency indicates to me that the prosecution believes someone else fired those fatal shots. If Peltier was there in an accessory capacity, I can see my way to supporting clemency, based on the context of what things were like on Pine Ridge in 1975 and the fact that he has served nearly 40 years — again, a decade more than Dallas served for the same kind of crime (plus escape).
thom Eley says
In the Spirit of Crazy Horse is a good read and Peter Matthiessen accused the Governor (I believe of Montana or Wyoming of rape). Matthiessen was a great writer and I have read all he has written. During his activist stage, he was a little loose with facts and was using LSD to help his writing. Even the naturalist George Schaller, who Matthiessen accompanied in The Snow Leopard, had some severe criticisms of The Snow Leopard and the interpretation of what occurred.
In the Spirit of Crazy Horse won praise and condemnation for both sides and Peter was accused of exaggeration of facts. It is a hard call, and Claude Dallas did get off easier yet he killed two game wardens. A few years ago, I was down in Burns and the Malheur country, where I spent a lot of time over the years. I noticed in an obituary that Claude Dallas was an honorary pallbearer. Friends down in that country say that happens all the time. So many interesting issues out there in the West. How do you separate fact from fiction? I know that two people seeing the same incident can have entirely different accounts of what happened.
JimC says
I watched Matthiessen get verbally assaulted by leftists at UC Santa Cruz because he dared to criticize the Sandinistas for their treatment of the Miskito Indians (I believe we’ve talked about this before). He handled himself well and earned my respect. But Anderson really does a pretty effective takedown of In the Spirit, and I trust Anderson as a journalist far more than I trust Matthiessen.
JimC says
I’ve heard the Dallas as pallbearer story, too. He’s around, keeping a low profile.
Pat_H says
Let’s be a little careful about “the Governor of Montana or Wyoming” in regards to that. If we’re going to accusing somebody of rape, let’s get the right state.
Wyoming has no connection with this story at all, and as a Wyomingite it’s frustrating on deals like this because it’s commonly assumed that whatever is going on in the west reflects what’s going on here, or whatever people think in part of the West is what we think also. That’s definitely not the case.
It also seems, while I’m whining about it, that Montana must loom large in people’s minds as its really common for Wyomingites to have people assume their in Montana. I get that at work a fair amount even. As in “say, we love that job you did for us in Laramie, and we have another one in your state. . . let’s see. . . oh yeah, up in Billings. .. ”
Oh well.
Pat_H says
Following on this, Pine Ridge is in South Dakota, not in Wyoming or Montana.
It was, at least as of a few years ago, one of the most economically depressed locations in the United States. I’ve been through and on it twice, and it does have a bleak feeling to it.
JimC says
Yes, Pine Ridge has always been a rough place, right from the very beginning.
elaine kay says
“rough place”…”rough-times”…”rough”, to tame a word for the yrs wasted…no purpose, no end in site. oboma, as all past presidents should have pardoned,..ive no hate for them, just want to rip their heads off. let leonard peltier go, please, just let him go, please.
Ryan says
There’s a very similar case in Kevin Cooper.
Basically Cooper was an escaped prisoner who hid out in an abandoned house before fleeing to mexico. Unfortunately, the same night he fled the house a family nextdoor and their houseguest were slaughtered. Cooper, being a black escaped convict, became the suspect. DNA SEEMS to convict him but a closer look confirms that the evidence is either dubious or an outright lie.
Judge William Fletcher made an unprecedented 100 page dissent outlining the problems with the case
http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2009/05/11/05-99004o.pdf
Notably 11 judges in total agreed that Cooper was robbed of a fair hearing. This was out of 27. Cooper’s clemency raised a lot of valid points a well.
Saddle Tramp says
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/john-densmore-to-barack-obama-apologize-to-native-americans-w460235
Saw John a week ago at The Doors 50th Anniversary Celebration… Old and still trying to get in the way ( in a good way ) … Maybe only [G]od and Leonard knows for sure! Benefit of the doubt appears to be very applicable here in my humble opinion. As is apparent much worse has happened… Much worse may be happening now!
JimC says
I haven’t heard anything further regarding the clemency petition. If it doesn’t happen in the next few days, it won’t happen ever.
Pat_H says
Well, while I’m whining, let me add this. In my view, this story has kept on keeping on only because the romanticized cultural aspect of it and because it’s attached to the romanticized 1960s.
And, yes, I know it happened in 1975. But let’s be frank, “the 1960s”, when people refer to it, really means the period from 1968 to 1975, more or less, just as the “the 1950s” runs from about 55 to 67.
Anyhow, Peltier has retained sympathy as people have a romantic notion of what happened during the Wounded Knee occupation. Yes, Pine Ridge, and the entire ongoing story of reservations in much of the county, is a sad disaster, but by the second half of the 1970s armed violence of this type is not in any way something that should be approved.d A President cannot really pardon a person convicted of the crime Peltier was convicted of without raising so many collateral issues that it would be a species of minor disaster.
JimC says
Peltier was definitely romanticized by the Che T-shirt wearing set. While Dick Wilson’s GOONs were, well, goons, AIM wasn’t exactly a set of angels. You are quite right that a pardon would have been totally out of line. Commutation after 40 years might have been acceptable IF one can be confident that Peltier was not the trigger man on the execution of Coler and Williams. After revisiting the case over many, many hours these past couple of weeks, I can’t say with confidence that he was or wasn’t. We’ll never know for sure.
Jane Seddon says
I am wondering if you can answer a question I have not been able to find the answer to that is somewhat related to Leonard Peltier. Marcus Beams, Choctow Native American, an American Indian Activist got a group together and marched on Washington in protest of Leonard’s arrest. FBI agents were in Oklahoma where Marcus lived (lives, I do not know if he is still alive?), it was a terrible situation there. Agent Jack Raines had been overseeing the tribe for three years, there was a lot of conflict due to Leonard’s arrest going on. Washington sent another agent, Paul Williams who was proud to have worked under Jack’s demonic father Harold Raines, also with the FBI many years even as far back as when Jack was a child (flash backs are shown of Jack thinking back of his hateful behaviors), slaughtered the Black Panthers in Chicago, some who he had just awakened.
While Marcus and the others were in Washington protesting, The sadistic, Paul Williams, being a ardent Native American despiser, drove to Marcus’s house with Jack Raines and though Jack was against it, Paul Williams had Jack pick up the filled gas can Paul brought along and they both walked up to Marcus’s house, Paul grinning as he and Jack walked along the house having Jack tossing the gas on it then, lighting it. The house was burned to the ground.
Sleeping in the house was Marcus’s mother, wife, 5 year old, 2 year old and infant daughters. All burned to death. When Jack and The devil Paul went to the coroner’s to identify the bodies the grandmother’s body was nothing left but powdered remains of bones, the wife was identified, the children were so burned the three of them were on the same table on the same sheet. I still can’t keep from crying, the hannious ICE COLD, NO HEART WHATSOEVER murderers.
Paul Williams was also the cause of the deaths of at least two other tribal men and a innocent school teacher there also, he shot her for trying to protect Marcus’s 5 years old daughter at the school after he grabbed the child waving his gun around her (the child-he was after her intentionally).
I learned about this watching a movie titled, “KUSHKA ” , on Comcast’s, ON DEMAND, which is going to stay on through 11/29/18. Although it states KUSHKA is a fictional name, the movie is based on the actual true event.
I have been researching without any luck to find out if all of the FBI agents had been prosecuted for these tortures and murders, including the other agents present who were involved with the brutal beatings of other tribesmen there including the principal of the school. These and Jack’s father Harrold Beams, who had been stationed in Chicago when he raided the Black Panthers home, I haven’t found the answer to.
If you know, or can find out if those people were punished or not I would GREATLY APPRECIATE you informing me.
Thank you for your time to read this.
Jane Seddon says
I look forward to hearing from you regarding the FBI committing those murders in Oklahoma and Chicago, as told in the fact based movie, “KUSHKA , that happened in relation to the arrest of Leonard Peltier.