No real evidence has been presented to establish this, even at his trial.
What he is surely "guilty" of is engaging in an armed battle against FBI agents. To even call it "armed struggle" is a bit of a stretch, since I can't find much evidence to consider AIM as anything approaching an organized military or paramilitary operation capable of even theoretically carrying on sustained armed resistance to the US (my minimal definition of "armed struggle").
Also, "60 Minutes" once aired a piece where a hooded figure gave a long and detailed confession to the killing on camera. CBS News seemed willing to stake their credibility (for whatever that's worth) on the guy.
As for Peltier's "guilt," even if he fired the fatal shot (again, much in doubt):
1) US legal principles (remember those? send reminders to the Supreme Court) require that defendants be found guilty of the crime of which they are charged, not another incident which has been bootstrapped into the other charge. Yes, I know prosecutors do it all the time, but that doesn't make it defensible, or something that doesn't deserve a pardon.
2) Jurisdiction. THE SHOOTING DID NOT OCCUR ON US TERRITORY. It occurred on sovereign native territory long recognized under US treaty obligations. And, yes, I know what those have been worth, but it's still the US's own law.
There is also the extremely dubious federal jursidictional claim (the "theft investigation") noted in another post.
3) Self-defense and the right against illegal searches and seizures in the real world. There has become an accepted de facto end to the Fourth Amendment in this country. The real standard now: Law enforcement can use whatever means at its disposal to enter someone's private property, employing the most transparent of ruses. If they kill or injure someone there, even someone rationally defending themselves, the cops are cleared. (See a reminder of this "process" in a recent post by Carrol Cox.) However, if someone kills or hurts a law enforcement official, EVEN IF THE OFFICIAL IS THERE ILLEGALLY, the assailant is a "cop-killer" who gets tried BEYOND the full extent of the law (since there will be a carefully organized media and political pressure campaign kept going by the law enforcement brotherhood--if only the Left had such solidarity...)
To the FBI, Peltier is guilty, not because he committed any specific crime, but because he took up a gun against FBI agents at all. There is a word for someone in jail for this kind of thing: Political prisoner. A category not recognized by US law, although certainly recognized by the US power structure, hence the tortured legal machinations leading to Peltier's imprisonment.
And even if he's guilty, guilty, guilty--and I don't think he is--Peltier's an ailing man who has been a model prisoner and the whole bit. If Britain (at secret US urging) can spring that fascist fuck Pinochet on humanitarian grounds, then the Hypocrite in Chief can do it for Peltier. Whatever one's position on armed struggle, what's the matter with this?
BTW, though, why are we inundating the Smudged House with e-mail, when it's now clear that pardons are directly for sale, like everything else? I'm not being entirely facetious here. Howard Fast claimed in his memoirs (I deposit the appropriate grain or ten of salt...) that, while Party members and other Left activists struggled mightily to clear the Rosenbergs on legal grounds, Fast instead decided, This is the US, why not find out which official to pay off? So he made some discrete inquiries, and found that the go-to guy at 1600 Penn Ave was: Harry S. Truman, who was selling pardons at the low, low rate of $500, a fix-it rate he had kept since his days on the Pendergast machine. He figured the Truman angle wouldn't work in the Rosenbergs' case, but claims he was about to put the touch on the appropriate judge (through Cardinal Spellman) when horrified Party members called him off.
So why don't we go the Michael Milken route? Why don't we all contribute to some PAC or "benevolent fund" and hand the loot over to the DNC, or Bill and Hill's still-needy legal defense fund, with the appropriate message re Peltier? Or, do an end around, and contribute to Sandra Day O'Connors' retirement account (act now while the opportunity lasts!) and get a nice Supreme Court ruling (they can be mighty quick nowadays)?
C'mon, lefties, why can't we work within the system?
----Original Message Follows---- From: Adam Pressler <adampopulist at yahoo.com> Reply-To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com Subject: Re: Leonard Peltier Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2000 14:07:36 -0800 (PST)
--- Justin Schwartz <jkschw at hotmail.com> wrote:
> almost any I can imagine arising), but this strikes
> me as an odd approach.
> If his claim is right, he's innocent and was framed.
> If so, should he not be
> freed, whatever his views? I mean, he's not asking
Fair enough criticism. I should have been more specific. I think he did kill the agent. I see peltier's case come up a lot on leftie groups. I think he is romanticized because his cause was armed struggle against an oppressive regime. And so my initial reaction was framed against this position.
Am I willing to concede that the government could have railroaded him? Never! Scalia, Thomas, and Renquist have restored my faith in the US legal system. Now if bush will only bring back Ed Meese.....
===== Adam Pressler
Dubya is that rarest of all gifts to an opposition, a genuine horse's ass, the Louis XVI of postmodernism. - Dennis R. Redmond
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