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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsSchatz Leads Group Of 7 Senators Urging Biden To Commute Leonard Peltier's Sentence
11.30.2022
WASHINGTON U.S. Senator Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, renewed efforts to urge President Joe Biden to commute the sentence of Leonard Peltier, a Native American activist convicted of murder in 1977 following a controversial investigation and trial, which many civil rights leaders and legal experts have called unjust, including the U.S. Attorney who prosecuted the case. The new letter follows Schatzs call for clemency in January. In addition to Schatz, the letter is signed by U.S. Senators Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Mazie K. Hirono (D-Hawaii) and Tina Smith (D-Minn.).
In their letter to the president, the senators cite Peltiers advanced age, illness, and the growing concerns of misconduct and injustice around his arrest and prosecution.
Mr. Peltier has spent more than half of his life behind bars. Now, at seventy-seven years old, he suffers from numerous health conditions, including a potentially fatal abdominal aortic aneurysm, the senators wrote. We urge you to grant clemency to Mr. Peltier by commuting the remainder of his sentence. Mr. Peltiers continued imprisonment defies the promises of justice, and the power to exercise mercy in this case lies solely within your discretion.
https://www.schatz.senate.gov/news/press-releases/schatz-leads-group-of-7-senators-urging-president-biden-to-commute-native-american-activist-leonard-peltiers-sentence
Tom Rinaldo
(22,911 posts)littlemissmartypants
(22,417 posts)MontanaMama
(23,238 posts)Enough already. Free Leonard Peltier.
Solly Mack
(90,740 posts)montanacowboy
(6,052 posts)n/t
Warpy
(110,900 posts)He is no threat to anyone and most likely never was. The charges were largely fabricated, the witnesses highly suspect, and at least one witness recanted later. That he's still sitting in prison is a gross miscarriage of justice and serves only a few FBI agents who are still having hissy fits over AIM.
He's ill and doesn't have much time left. Send him back to his people and his family. Now.
marble falls
(56,353 posts)TigressDem
(5,121 posts)I don't see that anywhere.
He did do an interview on 60 minutes saying he shot at them because they were shooting at him first.
marble falls
(56,353 posts)Is on Amazon Prime this month. It was a genuine eye-opener. In Canada, this murder is considered femicide.
The Spirit of Anna Mae (2002) a 72-minute film directed by Catherine Anne Martin, a tribute by women who knew Aquash. Produced by the National Film Board of Canada (NFB).[57
But what is also true: Leonard Peltier has been in prison longer by decades than anyone else would have been sentenced. He should have been released 20 years ago.
druidity33
(6,435 posts)marble falls
(56,353 posts)FBI: Civil rights activist was 'murdered by American Indian Movement'
FBI documents have confirmed he was killed two years later at Wounded Knee The 71-day standoff between AIM members and federal agents at Wounded Knee left at least two tribal members dead...
https://buffalonews.com news local crime-and-courts fbi-documents-confirm-murder-of-activist-missing-for-40-years article_88a2875e-4fdb-5a43-bf98-b8b907d33109.html
FBI documents confirm murder of activist missing for 40 years
Robinson's lawyers say there's a long history of sloppy or improper investigations by the government and they point to the case of Anna Mae Aquash, an AIM member whose body was discovered three...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Mae_Aquash
"In a January 2002 editorial in the News from Indian Country, DeMain said that he had met with several people who reported hearing Leonard Peltier in 1975 admit the shootings of the two FBI agents on June 26, 1975, at the Pine Ridge Reservation. They also said that they believed the motive for the death of Aquash "allegedly was her knowledge of who shot the two [FBI] agents, and Joe Stuntz." DeMain did not reveal his sources because of their personal danger in having spoken to him. In an editorial of March 2003, DeMain withdrew his support for clemency in the life sentence of Peltier. In response, Peltier sued DeMain for libel on May 1, 2003.[23] On May 25, 2004, after Arlo Looking Cloud was convicted by the jury, Peltier withdrew the suit; he and DeMain reached a settlement.
Observers and historians speculate about who ordered the murder of Annie Mae Aquash. Before her death, Aquash allegedly said FBI Special Agent David Price threatened she would die within the year if she refused to inform on Leonard Peltier.[42][43]
John Trudell testified in both the 1976 Butler and Robideau trial and the 2004 Looking Cloud trial that Dennis Banks had told him that the body of Anna Mae Aquash had been found before it was officially identified.[44] Banks wrote in his autobiography, Ojibwa Warrior, that Trudell told him that the body found was that of Aquash. Banks wrote that he did not know until then that Aquash had been killed, although she had been missing.
In Looking Cloud's trial, the prosecution argued that AIM's suspicion of Aquash stemmed from her having heard Peltier admit to the murders of the FBI agents. Darlene "Kamook" Nichols, former wife of the AIM leader Dennis Banks, testified that in late 1975, Peltier told of shooting the FBI agents. He was talking to a small group of AIM activists who were fugitives from law enforcement. They included Nichols, her sister Bernie Nichols (later Lafferty), Nichols' husband Dennis Banks, and Aquash, among several others. Nichols testified that Peltier said, "The motherfucker was begging for his life, but I shot him anyway."[45] Bernie Nichols-Lafferty gave the same account of Peltier's statement.[46]
Other witnesses have testified that once Aquash came under suspicion as an informant, Peltier interrogated her while holding a gun to her head.[47][48][49][50][51] Peltier and David Hill later had Aquash participate in bomb-making so that her fingerprints would be on the bombs. The trio planted the bombs at two power plants on the Pine Ridge reservation.[52] Extensive testimony suggests that AIM leaders ordered the murder of Aquash; because of her prominent position in the organization, lower-ranking members would not have taken action against her without permission from above.[citation needed]
Denise and Debbie Maloney
Together with federal and state investigators, Aquash's daughters Denise and Debbie believe that high-ranking AIM leaders ordered the death of their mother due to fears of her being an informant; they support the continued investigation.[39] Denise Pictou-Maloney is the executive director of the "Indigenous Women for Justice", a group she founded to support justice for her mother and other Native women.[5] In a 2004 interview, Pictou-Maloney said her mother was killed by AIM members who thought she knew too much. She knew what was happening in California, she knew where the money was coming from to pay for the guns, she knew the plans, but more than any of that, she knew about the killings.[53] In March 2018, Denise Maloney spoke at the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women inquiry in Montreal about her mother's murder.[54] "
If you'd like to reinform your defective opinion, look this up: The Spirit of Anna Mae (2002) a 72-minute film directed by Catherine Anne Martin, a tribute by women who knew Aquash. Produced by the National Film Board of Canada (NFB).[57
I also think it's long past time to release Peltier. He's been inside at least 20yrs longer than anyone else would have.
TigressDem
(5,121 posts)FBI Spaghetti at the wall / Sans Body / corpus delicti ---- no proof.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fbi-confirms-activist-ray-robinson-was-killed-during-1973-occupation-of-wounded-knee/
The FBI says a black civil rights activist was killed during the 1973 occupation of Wounded Knee, and it suspects militant members of the American Indian Movement are responsible, according to recently released documents.
But the documents fall short of pinpointing where Robinson was buried and do little to fulfill his family's wish to have the remains brought home to Detroit.
AIM co-founder Clyde Bellecourt said Wednesday that he was only in Wounded Knee for 51 days and knew nothing of Robinson.
"I don't know who he is," Bellecourt said. "I never met him. I don't know what he looks like."
Clyde Bellecourt questioned why the FBI wasn't spending its time investigating the many unsolved Native American deaths during Wounded Knee.
"There's never been a grand jury hearing on any of them," he said.
TigressDem
(5,121 posts)HOW could Anna Mae Aquash know what happened in 1975 when her body wasn't found until 1976 and had been dead 3 years?
YOUR LINK
https://buffalonews.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/fbi-documents-confirm-murder-of-activist-missing-for-40-years/article_88a2875e-4fdb-5a43-bf98-b8b907d33109.html
Robinsons lawyers say theres a long history of sloppy or improper investigations by the government and they point to the case of Anna Mae Aquash, an AIM member whose body was discovered three years after the standoff.
Aquash was originally determined to have died of exposure, but a second autopsy found a gunshot wound to her head.
In 2004, 28 years after Aquashs body was found, two men were convicted for her murder. The evidence also indicated she was shot because AIM members believed she was an FBI informant.
MAYBE Anna Mae Aquash knew something about civil rights activist Ray Robinson, who the FBI suspects was murdered at Wounded Knee, S.D. in 1973, but she was DEAD before anything happened at Pine Ridge in 1975.
WIKI needs to recheck their math.
bluestarone
(16,720 posts)niyad
(112,424 posts)wnylib
(21,146 posts)mahina
(17,502 posts)🤙🏼🤙🏼
bahboo
(16,234 posts)JustinBulletin
(71 posts)Thanks for posting.
The Roux Comes First
(1,278 posts)marble falls
(56,353 posts)... him.
Wild blueberry
(6,536 posts)Long past time for mercy.
Thank you for posting this.
mdelaguna
(471 posts)Evolve Dammit
(16,632 posts)TigressDem
(5,121 posts)FBI paints a different picture of course. Glossing over several key facts.
So put him on "house arrest" with an ankle bracelet somewhere he can be with his family and people who care about him.
He's practically needing Hospice at this point.
GET HIM OUT OF FLORIDA and back to the land of his people so he can reconnect and get the peace and strength he needs for this part of his life.
He's been up for parole since 1993. It's about time for SOME mercy.
https://freeleonard.org/case/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Peltier
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Leonard-Peltier
https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/resmurs-case-reservation-murders
McKim
(2,412 posts)This is great news!!!! I am writing to my senators right away! I care! Here in Oregon there is family and community around this issue. Lord, how long!!!!!
burrowowl
(17,605 posts)RandySF
(57,581 posts)Sienna86
(2,147 posts)A clemency decision would not play well with the Bureau.
kaotikross
(246 posts)Let the man out. He's 77 and sick, he's not going to pull off another Battle of Little Big Horn. If the FBI would have killed him instead of the way it went down it would have been back slapping, high fiving and probably a commendation.