In the 30 years since the shootout at Jumping Bull, Leonard Peltier has become a political and social icon. Just what kind of icon depends on your point of view. As Matthews put it in his op-ed piece for the Cincinnati Post, "depending on your view point, Peltier is either a cop killer or he is an American Nelson Mandela — a man whose conviction rests at best on dubious evidence."
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| Nelson Mandela |
In fact, in the years since Peltier's conviction, Nelson Mandela himself has joined a list of luminaries, a list that includes Desmond Tutu, actor Robert Redford and country singer Willie Nelson, all of whom have urged that he be released or pardoned. He has also won the support of political officials, not the least among them being Daniel Inouye, the former Democratic senator from Hawaii, and Don Edwards, a former Democratic Congressman from California who also spent years in the FBI.
In 1999, Amnesty International wrote that the organization "considers Leonard Peltier to be a political prisoner," and urged that he be "immediately and unconditionally released." Tutu, writing on the 22nd anniversary of Peltier's conviction declared, "I hope that the campaign to have him freed will succeed because it is a blot on the judicial system of this country."
Even some in the judicial system, like Judge Heaney, have argued that perhaps the time has come to free Peltier, who has remained active in social causes throughout his incarceration.
But for all of his support, it seems, that there are equally forceful voices arguing that he remain in prison. Though the courts have noted that the FBI may have acted improperly in the case, time after time, have repeatedly rejected petitions for a new trial for Peltier.
Peltier's opponents have remained steadfast in their opposition to his release. Last year, for example, when one of the men accused murdering Anna Mae Aquash the Indian activist who was with Peltier during his sojourn in Oregon was standing trial, a witness insisted that Peltier had admitted participating in the execution of the two FBI agents.
Peltier's supports insist that the testimony was, in the words of Bachrach, "a lie."
There have been other legal set back for Peltier as well. In 2002, federal authorities denied Peltier a parole hearing, departing from federal sentencing guidelines and ruling that no hearing could be held until 2008. According to a report in the Lawrence Journal World dated Sept. 20, 2003, the panel "based its' finding on the exhaustive court record which includes numerous unsuccessful appeals of Peltier's conviction and sentence."
What was most intriguing, says Bachrach, was that the US government at that proceeding effectively acknowledged what Peltier's supporters have long maintained, that the feds could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt whether Peltier actually executed the two FBI agents. U.S. Attorney Eric Melgren of Wichita put it this way, according to the Lawrence Journal-World. "Whether he was involved directly or he was aiding and abetting, he was involved in the premeditated, cold-blooded murder of two federal agents."
That ruling laid the groundwork for one more disappointment for Peltier's supporters, Bachrach told Crimelibrary.
Under the law, Bachrach said, the parole commission had to "give a specific, credible reason" to dispose of the sentencing guidelines and deny Peltier's parole hearing. The government's admission that it could not prove that Peltier was the triggerman, he said, seemed to bode well for him. "I felt like we were going to win that," Bachrach said.
"We appealed that to the 10th Circuit [court]," Bachrach said, "and in one of the more outrageous decisions, they did say 'much of the government conduct on the Pine Ridge reservation and in the prosecution of Mr. Peltier is to be condemned. The government withheld evidence. It coerced witnesses. The facts are undisputed.' But then it goes on, "there's nothing we can do,"
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