Speaker 1: Previously on our coverage of the wrongful conviction of Leonard Peltier,
Speaker 1: Federal prosecutors used false evidence to extradite Leonard Peltier from
Speaker 1: Canada to the United States, where his code efendants had
Speaker 1: just been acquitted on the grounds of self defense for
Speaker 1: the June nineteen seventy five fatal shooting deaths of two
Speaker 1: FBI agents on the Pine Ridge Reservation. So in preparation
Speaker 1: for Leonard's trial, they traded a premeditated ambush narrative for
Speaker 1: one claiming that after the agents pursued Leonard onto Jumping
Speaker 1: Bull Ranch to serve a warrant, a firefight had ensued,
Speaker 1: and when the agents were wounded, the beds claimed that
Speaker 1: Leonard approached them with an AR fifteen, which ejected a
Speaker 1: shell casing into the agent's trunk as he executed them
Speaker 1: in cold blood, but hidden evidence said otherwise, this is
Speaker 1: wrongful conviction. You're listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen
Speaker 1: to this and all the Lava for Good podcasts one
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Speaker 1: Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction
Speaker 1: for the final episode in our coverage of Leonard Peltier,
Speaker 1: where once again I'm joined by you know him and
Speaker 1: you love him, Ben Bolin from the podcast Stuff They
Speaker 1: Don't Want You to Know.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Jason. We'll pick up on this story where
Speaker 2: we left off when the federal prosecutors have been granted
Speaker 2: a change of venue from Cedar Rapids, Iowa to Fargo,
Speaker 2: North Dakota, where Judge Paul Benson cited mental incompetence when
Speaker 2: Barry Myrtle Poor Bear from testifying about how FBI agents
Speaker 2: coerced her into swearing falsely in three affidavits to obtain
Speaker 2: Leonard's extradition from Canada.
Speaker 1: It certainly looks like she was just of no use
Speaker 1: to them anymore for the purposes of Leonard's trial in
Speaker 1: March nineteen seventy seven, where the Beds once again were
Speaker 1: up to their same dirty tricks trying to influence the jury.
Speaker 3: Because the jurors were sequestered during Lennon's trial for their
Speaker 3: own safety, they were under twenty four hour US Marshall protection.
Speaker 3: And what we didn't know was that they were transported
Speaker 3: to the courtroom from their hotel, back to their hotel
Speaker 3: for lunch, et cetera, back and forth the end of
Speaker 3: the day, and the windows of this bus were taped
Speaker 3: up because they were told that this would prevent them
Speaker 3: from being.
Speaker 4: Shot at by snipers. Wow, and there were sniper teams
Speaker 4: very visible on the roof.
Speaker 2: Those snipers were FBI agents, but the alleged threat was
Speaker 2: from AIM and their supporters.
Speaker 3: The way the jurors came out of the building, the
Speaker 3: bus was parked about fifteen feet from the entrance. The
Speaker 3: door bursts open, a team of marshalls come and fan out,
Speaker 3: and then they ushered these jurors in fast as they
Speaker 3: can so they don't get shot between the building and
Speaker 3: the bus. You do this four times a day for
Speaker 3: six weeks, even have an impression.
Speaker 2: That's like psychological warfare.
Speaker 3: It was all about creating a climate of fear and terror.
Speaker 3: They did it in the courtroom. We had twenty five
Speaker 3: marshalls in the courtroom at all times. He had agents
Speaker 3: sitting behind us with submachine guns and cases.
Speaker 1: In addition to the terror tactics, the prosecution team of
Speaker 1: Lynn Crooks, Evan Holtman and Robert Sikma were able to
Speaker 1: take the self defense claim off the table with the
Speaker 1: execution narrative, which in turn barred witness testimony about the
Speaker 1: Goon Squad's betterally funded terror campaign that made self defense
Speaker 1: in gun battle the norm on Pine Ridge. And now
Speaker 1: but Jimmy Eagle also out of the picture. They needed
Speaker 1: witnesses to place Leonard in the car allegedly being chased
Speaker 1: by the agents.
Speaker 3: And suddenly a young man, Michael Anderson, who is fifteen
Speaker 3: years old at the time, in every statement he had
Speaker 3: given previously said he was in the camp when the
Speaker 3: firefight started, suddenly was quarter mile away and on the
Speaker 3: roof of one of the houses and watched a vehicle
Speaker 3: drive in, chased by the two agents. And it wasn't
Speaker 3: a red pickup like the agents described, but it was
Speaker 3: a red and white van like they found up in
Speaker 3: the camp and had been seen up by the houses
Speaker 3: at one point. So Mike's telling the story and he
Speaker 3: describes it as the agents following an orange pickup. And
Speaker 3: the prosecutor says, now, when you say orange pickup, do
Speaker 3: you mean a red and white van?
Speaker 2: And he said yes, that day the agents had clearly
Speaker 2: radioed in describing a red pickup like the one that
Speaker 2: Jimmy Eagle drove. But since the charges against Jimmy had
Speaker 2: been dropped the narrative became Leonard in his red and
Speaker 2: white van. Anderson also said that he'd come running back
Speaker 2: to the campground to grab a rifle and saw Leonard
Speaker 2: with an AR fifteen. On cross examination, Mike Anderson admitted
Speaker 2: that his charges relating to the exploding car in Wichita
Speaker 2: were dropped in a exchange for this testimony. In a
Speaker 2: similar vein Wilford, Draper admitted that he'd been threatened with
Speaker 2: indictment for the murder himself, so he agreed to testify
Speaker 2: that the group had knowledge of the FBI agent's cars
Speaker 2: on the day prior and that he had seen Leonard
Speaker 2: with an AR fifteen. Norman Brown flat out refused to
Speaker 2: repeat his testimony from the Butler Robadu trial that he'd
Speaker 2: seen the Trio near the agent's car. He said, quote,
Speaker 2: it was the agents who said that I saw them
Speaker 2: end quote, and he added that he too have been
Speaker 2: threatened with the indictment.
Speaker 5: Yes, the witnesses testified that their family was threatened, their
Speaker 5: mothers are threatened, and they were threatened of course, and
Speaker 5: tried to rechat any kind of statement that they were
Speaker 5: forced to make before. So it was no evidence. Nobody
Speaker 5: said I was shooting at anybody or killing anybody.
Speaker 1: No one witnessed anyone allegedly performing this execution on these
Speaker 1: two agents. And the medical evidence was that the agents
Speaker 1: were shot by a high velocity rifle at close range,
Speaker 1: and that Agent Williams had a defensive wound on his
Speaker 1: right hand, and that the gun must have been pressed
Speaker 1: against it before firing through his hand and his head.
Speaker 1: But strangely, there was no mention whatsoever of the burn
Speaker 1: wounds that are associated with close range gunshots. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: pause on that for a second. And both bodies, by
Speaker 1: the way, were discovered face down, which does not fit
Speaker 1: the scenario they described. But the theory was accepted at
Speaker 1: face value. And then came the ballistics.
Speaker 6: Essentially, it boiled down the two things. Number One, there
Speaker 6: was one and only one AR fifteen that was present
Speaker 6: at the Jumping bull compound at that time according to
Speaker 6: the witness testimony, and that Peltier had been seen with
Speaker 6: an AR fifteen, and therefore the wichita Ar fifteen was
Speaker 6: Leonard Peltier's AR fifteen. Now, look, there a few problems
Speaker 6: with that. Number One is there's no proof that the
Speaker 6: wichita AR fifteen found in the car months later was
Speaker 6: ever at the Jumping Bull compound. And more important, there
Speaker 6: was evidence that the government was aware of that there
Speaker 6: were numerous Ar fifteens present at that time that were
Speaker 6: firing bullets. Because they found other shellcasings at the scene,
Speaker 6: and they found other bullets at the scene, that information
Speaker 6: was suppressed. The second thing that was crucial was that
Speaker 6: the very firearms expert who testified for the government had
Speaker 6: sent a teletype while the investigation was still going on,
Speaker 6: saying that the shellcasing that was found in the agent's
Speaker 6: car did not match the wichita Ar fifteen. It was
Speaker 6: from a different gun. And this was based on a
Speaker 6: firing pin test.
Speaker 2: If you recall from Part two of our coverage, we
Speaker 2: discussed the mechanics of a semi automatic weapon and how
Speaker 2: although this type of analysis is best suited for excluding
Speaker 2: weapons rather than matchmaking, a firing pin test is the
Speaker 2: most reliable for identifying an individual weapon, while an extractor
Speaker 2: mark can merely identify things like make or model. The
Speaker 2: FBI firearm analyst Evan Hodge testified that the casing had
Speaker 2: been loaded and extracted from the wichita Ar fifteen. This
Speaker 2: is why it was so important for both There to
Speaker 2: have been only one AR fifteen and that it be
Speaker 2: placed in Leonard's possession. However, there were other AR fifteens,
Speaker 2: and when they'd received the fire damaged AR fifteen from Wichita,
Speaker 2: the bolt mechanism was removed and was placed in a
Speaker 2: different AR fifteen. According to an October nineteen seventy five teletype,
Speaker 2: a firing pin test of that Wichita AR fifteen was
Speaker 2: negative for a match with the casing from Agent Cohler's trunk.
Speaker 6: That was never given over to the defense. Had those
Speaker 6: two pieces of information been given to the defense, obviously
Speaker 6: the defense would have been in a position to undermine
Speaker 6: the entire case against Leonard Peltier, and make no mistake
Speaker 6: about it. The case was presented as Leonard Peltier being
Speaker 6: the person wielding the Wichita AR fifteen who walked up
Speaker 6: to both agents as they lay wounded and executed them
Speaker 6: both with one shell casing being discarded into the agent's car.
Speaker 6: That was the theory of the trial. That was what
Speaker 6: the jury believed, and that's how the conviction arose.
Speaker 5: A prosecutor, he made a stake at the closing arguments
Speaker 5: that I was a cold bloody killer executioner and was effective,
Speaker 5: I guess.
Speaker 1: They added that the witnesses who undermined their own testimony
Speaker 1: perhaps should have been tried to, calling aim a blood
Speaker 1: crazed bunch, and however undermined that testimony, was it aligned
Speaker 1: with what appeared to be scientific evidence related to this
Speaker 1: one shell casing that may or may not have been
Speaker 1: ejected into this agent's trunk. When you think about it,
Speaker 1: with all of the other lies, it's hard to know
Speaker 1: whether to believe this or any of this so called evidence.
Speaker 1: But nonetheless, on the fateful day of April eighteenth, nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy seven, Leonard Peltier was convicted on two counts a
Speaker 1: first degree murder.
Speaker 5: The clerk of the court told us, Judge Benson's not
Speaker 5: going to give you no more than thirty years. I
Speaker 5: would get out in fifteen. I take some of that,
Speaker 5: but I was so fucking upset that I wrote a
Speaker 5: very strong anti government statement. I condemned the court, I
Speaker 5: condemned a judge and the whole system with such disregard
Speaker 5: for the constitution, attempts at exterminating us. And I read
Speaker 5: that just before he sentenced me, and he gave me
Speaker 5: two life sentences. So if I had to keep my
Speaker 5: mouth shut. I probably would have been out after fifteen years,
Speaker 5: but I was just so fucking angry that I just
Speaker 5: couldn't control myself. Right after I was convicted, the elders
Speaker 5: came up to the railing there and said, we want
Speaker 5: you to know that we will fight for you for
Speaker 5: the rest of our lives if you're still in prison,
Speaker 5: and our children will fight for you for the rest
Speaker 5: of their lives, and if you're still in there, our
Speaker 5: grandkids will fight for you. They sent me to marry
Speaker 5: in Illinois's the harshest president I had at that time.
Speaker 5: It took the place of Alcatraz. They put me in
Speaker 5: a hole there and so that they can find it.
Speaker 5: I went to a hearing about thirty days later, and
Speaker 5: the captain there sentenced me to a century deprivation cell indefinitely.
Speaker 5: It's complete darkness. They only got one blanket to sleep on,
Speaker 5: and the only time you get light is when they
Speaker 5: opened the food slot. People come out of their completely nuts.
Speaker 5: Some people never come out of there. I was supposed
Speaker 5: to die in her I said a lot of prayers
Speaker 5: to Uncle Tunka, get your man to do that's the
Speaker 5: great spirit, and I just made my mind up you
Speaker 5: ain't going to break me. But my lawyers and other
Speaker 5: people were fighting. They finally got a hearing in the
Speaker 5: Supreme Court said you cannot re sentence people to these
Speaker 5: type of cells he's been setting and beside that that
Speaker 5: soll you got there is illegal.
Speaker 2: At this point, Leonard's appeals had been picked up by
Speaker 2: Dino and Bob's attorney, William Kuntzler, and this small victory
Speaker 2: over cruel and unusual punishment came along with the denial
Speaker 2: of his direct appeal, at which time Leonard was transferred
Speaker 2: to another facility, Lompoc.
Speaker 5: And when I got there, I couldn't believe it. I mean,
Speaker 5: this was so.
Speaker 1: Many holes, holes in the wall.
Speaker 2: No, I mean to escape, like the fencing and lower security.
Speaker 5: And some of the towers wasn't occupied, and I was
Speaker 5: looking around here. I said, wow. So first opportunity I got,
Speaker 5: we went out during the night, made it across the
Speaker 5: fence and they were shooting at us by then, and
Speaker 5: Dallas Thundershield had his arms up surrendering and they shot
Speaker 5: him in the back. I was able to escape, and
Speaker 5: I was gone five days out in the desert.
Speaker 2: And made it to Santa Maria California.
Speaker 5: Yes, miles from the prison. I was heading from Mexico.
Speaker 5: I was going out there to Dickaraka and I was
Speaker 5: sitting under this tree, and I haven't looked down to
Speaker 5: the lower grounds, and I seen this garden and I thought, gee,
Speaker 5: that it would be nice to sit up here and
Speaker 5: eat the melon or whatever else I could do. So
Speaker 5: I go down to this garden and all sudden, this
Speaker 5: guy starts shooting at me. I put my arms up.
Speaker 5: He got close enough to me where I snatched the
Speaker 5: gun out of his hand, and then he said, I
Speaker 5: suppose you're going to kill me now. And I looked
Speaker 5: at him. I said, what the fuck you tried to
Speaker 5: kill me, fucking asshole, excuse my language. But he got
Speaker 5: all panicky now he was crying and everything, and no,
Speaker 5: I wasn't just trying to chase you out of my garden.
Speaker 5: And I said, you're that and I just said I
Speaker 5: can't do this. And I told him, I said, well,
Speaker 5: don't be running calling the cops. Let me get away
Speaker 5: from here, okay, okay, but call the cops soon as
Speaker 5: he could. I guess they could come all from all directions.
Speaker 5: When they had me on the ground. This deputy sheriff
Speaker 5: was putting on handcuffs. I mean, the FBI agent came
Speaker 5: and put that barrel right here, and he said, your
Speaker 5: son him a bit. You killed two of my friends.
Speaker 5: I'm gonna blow your fucking brains up. And I just
Speaker 5: looked at him as well, do it, fucking brave, asked
Speaker 5: ole motherfucker. Now that I'm handcuffed and everything, I said,
Speaker 5: do it shoot And the deputy sheriff we started shaking
Speaker 5: on my back and he said, I'm not going to
Speaker 5: be part of no killing. So they must have been
Speaker 5: talking about it to see me kill me.
Speaker 1: Leonard got seven more years for the escape and weapons possession.
Speaker 1: By this time, every new class of FBI agents was
Speaker 1: being indoctrinated with the image of Leonard Peltier as their boogeyman.
Speaker 1: And meanwhile, in Canada, this a listener general, a guy
Speaker 1: named Warren Almond, began to make noise about how the
Speaker 1: FBI and prosecutors had presented Myrtle Forbear's perjured Affidavid's at
Speaker 1: Leonard's extradition.
Speaker 5: Hearing the Native people in Canada forced him to do
Speaker 5: an investigation on the extradition. Then they sealed it for
Speaker 5: forty years. Warren Allman was very upset about it. He
Speaker 5: took him another year to get in there and read
Speaker 5: this investigation report, and he found a letter in there
Speaker 5: from the Justice Department here in the United States that said,
Speaker 5: if you put in this investigation and release it, we
Speaker 5: would hold the fifty five million dollars that we're going
Speaker 5: to send you to the Joint Agricultural Laboratory.
Speaker 2: Well, with Warren Allman's efforts, newtered Leonardstein also exhausted the
Speaker 2: Myrtle poor Bear evidence.
Speaker 5: In post conviction on the Myrtle porbar thing, the judge
Speaker 5: asked Evan Haltman, we don't understand how anyone could continue
Speaker 5: to extract information from this witness, because it's quite obvious
Speaker 5: she was not a real witness. So Haltman said, your Honor,
Speaker 5: I had nothing to do with her, and when I
Speaker 5: read her AFFI David, I knew there was not once
Speaker 5: entil of truth. A few years later we find a
Speaker 5: document he had flew into Rapid City, and prosecutor that
Speaker 5: was representing the United States and Canada flew in from
Speaker 5: Canada and they wrote her third affidavit.
Speaker 2: So Evan Holtman's deception was once again not discovered until
Speaker 2: it was too late. And around this time is when
Speaker 2: Ron Kobe got involved.
Speaker 6: When I was a law student way back in nineteen
Speaker 6: eighty two, I started interning for William Kunstler, and at
Speaker 6: that point he was very deeply involved in trying to
Speaker 6: secure a new trial for Leonard Peltier, and so I
Speaker 6: started working on that case almost immediately and continued when
Speaker 6: I was finally admitted to the bar in nineteen eighty four.
Speaker 6: Kunstler had obtained new information that he believed was the
Speaker 6: key to getting Leonard a new trial.
Speaker 3: So here we had ballistics evidence I mentioned before the
Speaker 3: agent gets on the stand as well. We can't definitively
Speaker 3: do a firing pin test, but we can do an
Speaker 3: extractor mark test, and in fact there's a match. And
Speaker 3: for lawyers, if you see a word in a government
Speaker 3: document that refers to another document, you got to go
Speaker 3: after it.
Speaker 6: I think it was a freedom of information. After request,
Speaker 6: Kunstler learned of the existence of this teletype from Agent Hodge,
Speaker 6: which had been suppressed.
Speaker 3: We asked for two October second teletypes that we had
Speaker 3: not gotten. Not only could that damaged AR fifteen from Kansas,
Speaker 3: at least the one that they used to test could
Speaker 3: produce a firing pin test, but those teletypes revealed that
Speaker 3: there was no match whatsoever whatsoever.
Speaker 1: In previous episodes, we've covered the FBI Crime Lab and
Speaker 1: the culture of misconduct, false testimony, and manipulating evidence that
Speaker 1: was exposed in the mid nineties by a whistleblower named
Speaker 1: Frederick Whitehurst, who came forward at great personal and professional risk.
Speaker 1: We're going to link to our coverage of Elmer Daniels,
Speaker 1: who was interviewed by fellow Xandery death Row Exunery by
Speaker 1: the way, John Huffington, both of whom had been victims
Speaker 1: of false testimony from the FBI Prime Lab, and it
Speaker 1: appears that this culture of misconduct was present during Leonard's trial,
Speaker 1: as Evan Hodge testified that his test casings and the
Speaker 1: casing from Kohler's trunk were loaded and unloaded from that
Speaker 1: particular rifle, while this October nineteen seventy five firing pin
Speaker 1: test said otherwise.
Speaker 6: And based on that, I filed emotion for a new trial.
Speaker 6: There was a very extensive evidentiary hearing where agent Evan
Speaker 6: Hodge tried to say he didn't mean to suggest that
Speaker 6: he was talking about the shellcasing found in the agent's car.
Speaker 6: He was testing other shellcasings, and it's like, really the
Speaker 6: most important piece of evidence in the case. And you
Speaker 6: send a teletype about other shellcasings belonging to other ar fifteens,
Speaker 6: which the FBI claimed weren't even at the scene. Made
Speaker 6: no sense, clearly a lie. But something very interesting happened
Speaker 6: in the course of the argument on that appeal. The
Speaker 6: government was not convinced they were going to win. The
Speaker 6: Eighth Circuit was skeptical, or at least made skeptical sounds,
Speaker 6: and so during oral argument the government said, look, we
Speaker 6: may not be able to prove that in fact, it
Speaker 6: was Peltier who fired the fatal bullets at close range.
Speaker 5: He said, your honor, I want you to know the
Speaker 5: government doesn't know who the shooter is nor what participation
Speaker 5: Leonard Peltier may have had in it.
Speaker 4: The government switched from Leonard doing it to no, no, no,
Speaker 4: Leonard was just a nat in.
Speaker 6: A better That was an amazing concession, because for over
Speaker 6: a decade the government and the FBI had been relentlessly
Speaker 6: saying that Leonard Peltier walked up to two wounded agents
Speaker 6: executed them at point blank range and suddenly the government saying, well, okay,
Speaker 6: maybe not, but he was shooting at them. Nonetheless, the
Speaker 6: judge denied the motion, and on appeal the Eighth Circuit
Speaker 6: said it would possibly have helped Peltier's defense to have
Speaker 6: this teletype. It would have helped impeach the agent. It
Speaker 6: would have helped you establish that there were other ar
Speaker 6: fifteens at the scene. But we're not convinced under the
Speaker 6: Brady standard that this was sufficiently material to create a
Speaker 6: reasonable possibility that a jury would have come to a
Speaker 6: different conclusion had they heard this evidence.
Speaker 1: In what Okay, So this Brady violation destroys the alleged
Speaker 1: evidence that Leonard had executed two wounded FBI agents in
Speaker 1: cold blood, leaving him, as it was now framed, as
Speaker 1: an alleged aider and a better.
Speaker 3: And that's where then it became an issue because wait
Speaker 3: a minute, if he was just an aider and a better,
Speaker 3: then how could the judge deny him the same defense
Speaker 3: that Daryl Butler and Bob Robberty you had where they
Speaker 3: were able to show that they had reasons to act
Speaker 3: in self defense on that day.
Speaker 6: So we go back into court once again using the
Speaker 6: government's concession is a basis for a new trial, and
Speaker 6: again the Eighth Circuit manages to affirm the conviction, pointing
Speaker 6: out that in the indictment Peltier was named as an
Speaker 6: aider and a better so in theory the conviction could
Speaker 6: be upheld, even though that was not the case the government.
Speaker 7: What up.
Speaker 4: Leonard?
Speaker 1: All these years decades in prison, forty nine years and
Speaker 1: eleven days, How did you manage to find hope inside
Speaker 1: those walls all those years.
Speaker 5: I didn't join the rest of inmates. I didn't go
Speaker 5: into what they usually do, drugs and drinking and things
Speaker 5: like that. I kind of went into my own little group.
Speaker 5: We played handball, worked out in the weights, and paint.
Speaker 5: I went into art room and I decided I was
Speaker 5: going to develop my artwork, and I went to school
Speaker 5: for a while, helped Peter Mansson write In the Spirit
Speaker 5: of Crazy Horse, and then I eventually wrote my own book,
Speaker 5: Prison Writings, and In the Spirit of Crazy Horse went
Speaker 5: to number one best seller in the world. The FBI
Speaker 5: filed twenty million dollar lawsuit. Bill Jankel, the governor of
Speaker 5: South Dakota, filed a twenty five million dollar losson They
Speaker 5: held it off. The bookshelves for eight and a half years,
Speaker 5: cost us two and a half million dollars to defend ourselves, and.
Speaker 1: I hope everyone will order recovery of that book. But
Speaker 1: you had on your side, not just Pope Francis Art
Speaker 1: Bishop too, to Mother, Teresa Nelson, Mandela Muhammad, Ali.
Speaker 5: Marlon Brando, Robert Redford, Peter Coyote.
Speaker 1: The Dali, Lama, Coreta, Scott.
Speaker 5: King, Santana, Grateful Dead, Willian.
Speaker 4: Nelson, Johnny Depp.
Speaker 1: Of course Rage Against the Machine.
Speaker 2: I know a lot of gen xers and millennials like
Speaker 2: myself were too young to know about Leonard when the
Speaker 2: case happened back in nineteen seventy five. Some of us
Speaker 2: weren't born yet. However, a lot of people heard about
Speaker 2: Leonard with a music video for Freedom by Rage Against
Speaker 2: the Machine was released on MTV back when that was
Speaker 2: still a thing. If you went to a rage show,
Speaker 2: especially support of that album, you heard a lot about Leonard.
Speaker 2: And that was nineteen ninety four, and his cause gained
Speaker 2: a lot of political momentum toward the end of the
Speaker 2: Clinton administration, not just because of Rage Against the Machine,
Speaker 2: but also because a former FBI agent turned Congressman Don
Speaker 2: Edwards joined the cause as well.
Speaker 5: Don Edwards, he was a supporter of mine and he
Speaker 5: was doing an interview and they asked him and they said,
Speaker 5: why are you supporting someone that was convicted of killing
Speaker 5: two year agents? He said, I worked there, I know
Speaker 5: what they did to Leonard. And there's others. There's probably
Speaker 5: about ten more FBI agents that came forward and said
Speaker 5: they don't use this term, but it meant they manufactured
Speaker 5: evidence and tortured witnesses and things like that.
Speaker 1: So the political will was primed for Clinton's final days
Speaker 1: in office as a team of people, including Bruce Ellison,
Speaker 1: advocated passionately for Leonard's clemency.
Speaker 3: And we got some very interesting contacts from some Hollywood
Speaker 3: folks who had regular contacts with the Clintons. We met
Speaker 3: with White House counsel and chief of staff. We had
Speaker 3: a really good meeting.
Speaker 1: Was that Bruce Lindsay.
Speaker 4: Bruce Lindsay was one of the participants.
Speaker 3: Yes, And leading up to this, about several weeks before
Speaker 3: Senator Dashel from South Dakota was the Senate majority leader
Speaker 3: at the time, took William Janklow, who.
Speaker 1: Was Leonard, told us about his early life too. He's
Speaker 1: a reprehensible character must bartant.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he was basically a convicting tribal court a child, right.
Speaker 2: If you remember we talked about Bill Jenklow's privileged existence,
Speaker 2: his alleged serial rape ignored not only by law enforcement
Speaker 2: but by South Dakota voters, paving the way to Janklow
Speaker 2: becoming Attorney general Governor of South Dakota twice, as well
Speaker 2: as his path to Congress. And after all this time
Speaker 2: for Leonard and Ames audacity to RaSE Gencida Eagle Deer's allegations.
Speaker 2: During Janklow's run for AG in nineteen seventy four, Jinklow
Speaker 2: actively lobbied against Leonard's clemency. In the year two.
Speaker 3: Thousand, Dashel leads Janklo in to meet with Clinton. Clinton
Speaker 3: was told that South Dakota senator would lose the next election.
Speaker 3: It was going to cost the Democrats the Senate if
Speaker 3: he pardoned Peltier, which is bullshit.
Speaker 4: But we have this meeting the next week.
Speaker 3: This is on like a Friday, a week before Clinton's leaving.
Speaker 4: Office, and it goes great.
Speaker 3: And in fact, I was asked to draft up a
Speaker 3: bunch of bullet points for Clinton to say at a
Speaker 3: press conference. Announcing the clemency, and then on Wednesday of
Speaker 3: the following week, Clinton's lawyers, according to the Hollywood People,
Speaker 3: said that meeting on Wednesday was about whether Clinton was
Speaker 3: going to be indicted for perjury in front of the
Speaker 3: grand jury, white Water grand Jury, Monica Lewinsky grand jury,
Speaker 3: and other things.
Speaker 4: And I've been through lots of.
Speaker 3: Of times that they do questioning and work out deals
Speaker 3: and all this stuff. And basically, while I don't know
Speaker 3: the exact words, Leonard's name came up four times during
Speaker 3: the day's discussions, and basically Clinton got the idea and
Speaker 3: he was told, look, if you grant this clemency, anytime
Speaker 3: you want your huousand two hundred thousand dollars speaking engagements
Speaker 3: wherever you are in the country of the world, that's
Speaker 3: going to get picketed by cops and we're going to
Speaker 3: make it difficulty you to earn your money.
Speaker 4: Well, you can do nothing, and he did nothing.
Speaker 1: By this time, the Supreme Court had also ignored Leonard's
Speaker 1: case despite the blatant material Brady violation, and so the
Speaker 1: legal battle began to focus on obtaining an estimated one
Speaker 1: hundred thousand undisclosed FBI documents through Foyer requests to see
Speaker 1: what else they could find.
Speaker 6: Leonard went through a number of lawyers who were fighting
Speaker 6: this issue, and he re enlisted me. I think back
Speaker 6: in two thousand and six, back in the o's we
Speaker 6: got a lot of documents, and a lot of documents
Speaker 6: we didn't yet, and a lot of documents we still
Speaker 6: haven't received.
Speaker 2: But nothing of newt was handed over. Meanwhile, as sentencing
Speaker 2: law went before nineteen eighty four, despite his double life sentence,
Speaker 2: Leonard became eligible for parole after twenty five years plus
Speaker 2: the seven years he'd gotten for the escape and weapon possession,
Speaker 2: and his lawyer made a strong presentation that was summarily
Speaker 2: denied for an additional fifteen years, during which time they
Speaker 2: lobbied the Obama administration twice to no avail, and Leonard
Speaker 2: was denied parole again at the Parole board in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty four, with just a few months left in the
Speaker 2: Biden administration.
Speaker 6: Administrations, far more sympathetic to Native American issues, refused to
Speaker 6: grant him clemency. Every judicial remedy had been exhausted. I mean,
Speaker 6: there's two ways to look at the legal fight. One
Speaker 6: way is that ongoing consistent legal bans adults shipping away
Speaker 6: at the prosecution's case helped enable the mass movement that
Speaker 6: eventually succeeded in winning clemency for Peltier. That's what I
Speaker 6: choose to believe. There is another position you could take,
Speaker 6: which is, despite hundreds of thousands of lawyer hours being
Speaker 6: poured into the case, nothing that any of the dozens
Speaker 6: of lawyers did accomplished a single damn thing for Leonard.
Speaker 5: But my people have never given up on me. That
Speaker 5: was very, very encouraging.
Speaker 3: You know, Leonard's long had such international recognition and efforts
Speaker 3: at justice put forth and that have always been ignored.
Speaker 3: But the combination this time worked. You know, all the
Speaker 3: tribal leaders got together. Secretary Headland spoke to Biden a
Speaker 3: couple of times privately. There was a lot of people
Speaker 3: who were just making a lot of things happen. And
Speaker 3: then Tilson and Holly really just did a tremendous job.
Speaker 3: And so anyway, somewhere in this mix, Biden decides to
Speaker 3: do the right thing.
Speaker 1: So Holly mccaro and Nick Tilson, from an advocacy group
Speaker 1: called Indian Collective, along with a former federal judge named
Speaker 1: Kevin Sharp, petitioned the Biden administration for clemency. And there's
Speaker 1: a documentary called pre Leonard Peltier that we're going to
Speaker 1: link in the episode description. I highly recommend it. By
Speaker 1: the way, the moment the news came through was caught
Speaker 1: on video. It gave me full body jills watching that
Speaker 1: and Holly mccaro, she was actually there for this incredible moment.
Speaker 7: On the day that Leonard was granted clemency, I was
Speaker 7: in the parking lot in Florida. He was in Coleman,
Speaker 7: the Federal Max. We had told Leonard that we had
Speaker 7: had some strong indications and were feeling very positive, but
Speaker 7: again we had to see it in writing because of
Speaker 7: what happened with Clinton, where they told him he's on
Speaker 7: the list, then they wake up and he wasn't on
Speaker 7: the list. So we expected it to be on Monday morning.
Speaker 7: So we're in the parking lot. We prayed, we sang
Speaker 7: our songs, we smudged, and I was in very close
Speaker 7: contact with several folks within the White House while we
Speaker 7: were waiting. Fred Dejarlie, who's a spiritual leader. He was
Speaker 7: with us and he said, there's an eagle over there,
Speaker 7: and I didn't know that there were bald eagles in
Speaker 7: Florida that far south, and we all looked and there
Speaker 7: were two eagles circling above us. You could hear them whistling.
Speaker 7: That was maybe then around eleven fifteen am and sixteen
Speaker 7: seventeen eighteen, we were hitting refreshed on White House dot
Speaker 7: Gov over and over. I was too Yeah, if I'd
Speaker 7: never have to hit refresh again, it'll be too soon.
Speaker 7: But I had already begun receiving notes from friends and
Speaker 7: family and folks who know I had been working in
Speaker 7: advocacy for Leonard and saying, oh, I'm really sorry, because
Speaker 7: there was already video of the president leaving the White
Speaker 7: House and heading for the Capitol on inauguration day there.
Speaker 7: So I think it was eleven forty four when the
Speaker 7: announcement came through and we celebrated in the parking lot there,
Speaker 7: and that announcement it was just that he had commuted
Speaker 7: his sentence. We didn't receive the detail with the home
Speaker 7: confinement or the date of February eighteenth until a couple
Speaker 7: of hours later, and Leonard called me, and almost exactly
Speaker 7: an hour later, and he said, well, my dear, I've
Speaker 7: been on pins and needles. I've been up since midnight.
Speaker 7: He said, did you do it? And I said, yes, Leonard,
Speaker 7: President Biden granted you. Clemency was sixteen minutes left in
Speaker 7: his administration. He said, did you see it in writing?
Speaker 7: And I said, I saw it in writing. And then
Speaker 7: Leonard said, so it's real, then it's real. I said, yes,
Speaker 7: it's real. You'll be going home.
Speaker 5: I didn't really believe that I got it even after
Speaker 5: the war and called me down, gave me a copy
Speaker 5: of this commendation and everything, and I said, that is
Speaker 5: all a joke, man, And so I really didn't believe
Speaker 5: it even very few days later. I just you're going
Speaker 5: to come tell me at any moment, so bullshit. And
Speaker 5: I were playing games or whatever else. So that's what
Speaker 5: went through my mind.
Speaker 6: And honestly, I don't think if anybody saw that coming.
Speaker 6: I think that most of us, if we're going to
Speaker 6: be honest with ourselves, never thought we would see the
Speaker 6: day that Leonard would walk out of prison alive. And
Speaker 6: it was just ironic. It took a man with absolutely
Speaker 6: no political future left to him to summon up the
Speaker 6: political will to go ahead and sign that paper.
Speaker 5: Got in a car with Holly and Nick and hell
Speaker 5: out of.
Speaker 7: Here, we had a ribbon shirt, we had new moccasins
Speaker 7: for him as he began this new path forward, and
Speaker 7: then we had a ceremony to help him leave some
Speaker 7: of this behind him and flew him home to Turtle Mountain.
Speaker 2: Leonard is finally out of prison, but he's still under
Speaker 2: house arrest for the terms of his clemency.
Speaker 1: Which come on house arrest after what we've heard here.
Speaker 1: But at least Leonard is finally able to breathe free air,
Speaker 1: see family and friends, and see a doctor outside of prison.
Speaker 2: After fifty years of medical neglect, he is in dire
Speaker 2: need of medical attention at the age of eighty. We
Speaker 2: will link ways to donate in the episode description here,
Speaker 2: as well as other action steps, And of course we
Speaker 2: asked Leonard and Bruce what else people can do.
Speaker 5: I need my story told again and again and again
Speaker 5: because hopefully it will help my people.
Speaker 3: This is a message for people lawyers who I want
Speaker 3: to encourage young lawyers to get involved. But that is
Speaker 3: you've got to remember that this is a war, and
Speaker 3: it's a real war, and they fight it in different ways,
Speaker 3: and yes there are risks, because we know the American
Speaker 3: government works in a way that they never go after
Speaker 3: people for political reasons.
Speaker 4: They're always going after them because they're criminals.
Speaker 3: Well, when Jed Cahover passed away to read a book
Speaker 3: by Sanford Hunger about the FBI the POSTI, one of
Speaker 3: the things he mentions in there was to cover that
Speaker 3: up and make it legal. They entered instructions that if
Speaker 3: you decided to actually target a person, you have to
Speaker 3: put in some crime that you believe that you're actually investigating,
Speaker 3: so that whatever the result is, it's not because they're
Speaker 3: trying to defend their people they want to protect the
Speaker 3: land from a hazard this pipeline. It's because they're engaged
Speaker 3: in criminal activities.
Speaker 4: And thus we have the world that.
Speaker 3: We have today right where we're going to watch people
Speaker 3: around it up. There's always going to be some law
Speaker 3: that they're going to try and claim. Now having a
Speaker 3: little problem with the immigration stuff, but really they're going
Speaker 3: to pass laws in Congress. They're going to do what
Speaker 3: they did in South Dakota and a lot of other
Speaker 3: places where what they call anti riot booster laws where
Speaker 3: they essentially criminalize nonviolent civil disobedience as terrorism. The struggle
Speaker 3: to protect the earth, to protect the people in terms
Speaker 3: of having a livable world and a sustainable world and
Speaker 3: a free world. That struggle is now reach out another height.
Speaker 3: There's renewed Indian activism and the government is going after
Speaker 3: people now, so we have like the next wave which
Speaker 3: is coming, and men like Leonard Peltier and beIN Pular though,
Speaker 3: they're the ones that will help and are helping to
Speaker 3: inspire the young people and give a direction of discipline
Speaker 3: and love and honor and respect. It's been an honor
Speaker 3: of mine despite what I have gone through, and I
Speaker 3: got a lot of messages for lawyers who want to
Speaker 3: get involved in this particular work. Be prepared for anything,
Speaker 3: because you get treated like the people you're representing. They
Speaker 3: literally think you're part of it. And to some extent,
Speaker 3: I honorably became part of that. Because this is the
Speaker 3: real world. These are things that affect people's daily ability
Speaker 3: to survive.
Speaker 1: We have a tradition here at Wrongful Conviction. It's called
Speaker 1: closing arguments, and it's where I first of all, thank
Speaker 1: you again from the bottom of my heart for being
Speaker 1: here and sharing this story with us. And then I'm
Speaker 1: just going to kick back in my chair and listen
Speaker 1: to anything else you feel has been left unsaid.
Speaker 7: I think it is so important to tell this story.
Speaker 7: It's about injustice, eventual justice. When we share this story
Speaker 7: with audiences like yours, it helps us ensure that this
Speaker 7: will never happen again, but it also lets us know
Speaker 7: that the work continues. Many of the things that inspired
Speaker 7: the birth of the American Indian Movement in Minneapolis, and
Speaker 7: that inspired Dino and Leonard and other leaders of the
Speaker 7: movement back then, those conditions exist today. Their activism and
Speaker 7: voices brought us to the table in the nineteen seventies
Speaker 7: and inspired landmark legislation that we all rely on today
Speaker 7: to protect American Indian rights. But some of those conditions
Speaker 7: exist today, and I think Leonard looking forward has an
Speaker 7: important platform and role of leadership in making sure that
Speaker 7: the injustice doesn't happen again, but that we are also
Speaker 7: always making the noise to protect our people.
Speaker 3: In these dangerous and threatening times, it is important for
Speaker 3: us to remember that we can either go as sheep,
Speaker 3: or we can stand up. And if we stand up,
Speaker 3: and especially stand up for those who were being threatened
Speaker 3: by aspects of our system that's designed to stop exposure
Speaker 3: the truth the reality of too many people in this
Speaker 3: country and we figure out how to do it together
Speaker 3: and do it with love. But most importantly, there's too
Speaker 3: many people who been wrongfully convicted and who are still
Speaker 3: in prison, and anyone who can do anything to help,
Speaker 3: information whatever, don't forget those people.
Speaker 4: You just never know what.
Speaker 3: Might happen if you keep trying, and you keep sending
Speaker 3: all those prayers and strength and love to those who
Speaker 3: are decision making, it's keeping that person strong and healthy.
Speaker 3: So I guess that's what I'd say, because it's only
Speaker 3: together we can do this, and we can't.
Speaker 5: I can't express how I'm actually feeling about this freedom.
Speaker 5: Like I said, I've never expected it. I didn't think
Speaker 5: it was going to happen. I thought it was going
Speaker 5: to in prison. But it isn't just about Leonard Peltier.
Speaker 5: It's about the struggle. It's about what they did or
Speaker 5: try to do to us Natives. They tried to exterminate us.
Speaker 5: We were we're not supposed to exist no more. We
Speaker 5: were supposed to be gone by nineteen eighty five, that's
Speaker 5: when the extermination policy was supposed to be completed. So
Speaker 5: for me to be able to fight for my people
Speaker 5: and sacrifice is an honor. I would not hesitate to
Speaker 5: fight for them again, even though I went through fifty
Speaker 5: years in prison. It's just something that was honor for
Speaker 5: me to fight for my people, and it's honor for
Speaker 5: me to be able to talk to them now, to
Speaker 5: all the people around the world that supported me. It's
Speaker 5: something I can't really express how grateful I am, how
Speaker 5: honored I am that they would put me in this position,
Speaker 5: and I'm just very grateful for everything everybody's doing.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. You can listen
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Speaker 1: production team, Connor Hall and Kathleen Fink, as well as
Speaker 1: my fellow executive producers Jeff Kempler, Kevin Wartis, and Jeff Kleiber.
Speaker 1: The music in this production was supplied by three time
Speaker 1: OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us
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Speaker 1: at Wrongful Conviction. You can also follow me on Instagram
Speaker 1: at It's Jason Flamm. Wrongful Conviction is a production of
Speaker 1: Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number one.
Speaker 1: We have worked hard to ensure that all facts reported
Speaker 1: in this show are accurate. The views and opinions expressed
Speaker 1: by the individuals featured in this show are their own
Speaker 1: and do not necessarily reflect those of Lava for Good