President Bill Clinton
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Washington D.C. 20500
Dear Mr. President:
My name is John Gordon, and I am a 15 year-old student at Carolina Friends School in Durham, NC. In recent months I have become aware and concerned about the case of Leonard Peltier, a Lakota Sioux. Mr. Peltier is currently serving a life term in federal prison for allegedly murdering two FBI Agents, Ron Williams and Jack Coler, on June 26, 1975. Mr. President, there are many people that are serving life sentences in prison right now, and most of them deserve to be there, but Mr. Peltier does not. He and his people were victims of racist government discrimination before the incident in which Agents Williams and Coler were killed, and ever since the incident, Mr. Peltier has been a casualty of the remnants of racism still left in our legal system.
Prior to the date on which the agents were killed, the traditional Indians on the Pine Ridge reservation where Mr. Peltier resided had been living under a reign of terror carried out by the tribal government of Dick Wilson. The late Mr. Wilson’s GOON (Guardians Of Oglala Nation) Squads acted out his policy of terrorizing anyone and everyone who opposed him, using guns acquired with government money. Members of AIM (American Indian Movement) were the ones who spoke out against him and his ways, and it was AIM members and supporters, primarily traditional Indians, who were terrorized, and killed. During the period of three years from March 1973 to March 1976, at least 342 traditional Indian people were killed. The Pine Ridge reservation had the highest murder rate in the entire country. There were more murders in Pine Ridge than in the whole state of South Dakota. It is also important to note that, to this day, none of the 342 recorded murders have been investigated. So you can see that the people on the Pine Ridge reservation lived in a climate of intense fear and mistrust. Their people were getting killed every day, and the government didn’t even bat an eye or lift a finger to try and stop it.
So when the car containing Agents Williams and Coler drove into the reservation, the Indians there had good reason to be afraid: an unfamiliar car usually meant trouble. Then, when gunshots were heard, and it is not clear who made the first shots, the natural thing to do would be to get your gun and go try to defend the women and children. It is a tragedy that Williams and Coler died. It is also a tragedy that later that day, during the brief standoff with the FBI, an Indian named Joe Stuntz was killed. But his death was never even investigated.
Four men, including Leonard Peltier were indicted for the killing of the two FBI Agents. Leonard was arrested in Canada and waited for extradition hearings. Meanwhile, in the states, two of the Indians were found not guilty by self-defense, and charges were dropped against the other man. Leonard was then extradited to the US on the basis of affidavits that the FBI later admitted were falsified. That was injustice number one. Next, Mr. Peltier was tried in Fargo, North Dakota, a town historically biased against Indians, under a openly anti-Indian Judge, Paul Benson. The trial was rigged to convict Mr. Peltier, and much of the evidence that had been used to acquit the previous two defendants was not allowed in Mr. Peltier’s trial. As a result, on April 18, 1977, he was convicted and sentenced to two life terms. In the following years, Mr. Peltier’s appeals were denied, despite new evidence of serious misconduct by the FBI.
On October 15, 1985, while arguing the case before the Court of Appeals, prosecutor Lynn Crooks said: “we don’t know who killed those agents.” Later, on September 11, 1986, after sitting on it for almost 11 months, the Court of Appeals issued its opinion. It said that the government “withheld evidence from the defense favorable to Peltier”, and that had the evidence been made available, “there is a possibility that the jury would have acquitted Leonard Peltier.” They said all this, yet they denied him a new trial. That represents absolute backwards thinking, it makes no sense.
Mr. President, I have tried to make it clear why I think Leonard Peltier should not be in prison. He is a good man who deserves to have been treated better by his country. Currently, he is up for parole, and a parole hearing officer has made a positive recommendation for his parole, but parole is not enough. It has limitations, and Leonard Peltier deserves to have none. He should be a free man, and you can make him one by granting him executive clemency. It is the right thing to do, Mr. President, and I strongly urge you to do so.
Sincerely,
John Gordon
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