​Shaving the corners of justice: the prosecution of Leonard Peltier

On December 21st, 2016, James Reynolds, an attorney from the prosecution team against Leonard Peltier, penned an open letter to Obama requesting his clemency. He states in his letter that granting Leonard clemency is “in the best interest of Justice.” A huge statement for a prosecuting attorney who put someone in jail for 40 years and accused them of murder.

Reynolds however topped it in a subsequent interview with the New York Daily News published on January 3rd stating, in regards to the trial, “we might have shaved a few corner(s) here and there.”

To those who’ve lived, or in my case, studied the Wounded Knee trials, and the many other trials conducted against American Indian Movement activists in the 1970s, it’s an affirmation from the inside.

But what is he referring to? Is he suggesting they put a square peg in a round hole?

Let’s start with the first corner of the peg, the extradition of Leonard from Canada. Solid information would be required to persuade Canada, or any country, to extradite an individual.

Thus, they used his girlfriend, Myrtle Poor Bear, who placed him at the scene and said she saw the entire event. However, after he was handed over, it turns out that she was neither at the scene, nor Leonard’s girlfriend. The FBI couldn’t corroborate her story with anyone else’s. It turned out to be a brute fabrication. Some pretty hefty shaving to dupe our biggest ally to hand Leonard over. Her little-known testimony about the intimidation she suffered can be found in the documentary “Annie Mae: Brave-Hearted Woman.”

To finish off that corner, and to set up the next couple ones, they needed to “address problems” (FBI’s exact words) from previous trials that exposed FBI malfeasance. But they needed a complicit judge, and with a change of venue, they got a judge to grant a pretrial ruling that greatly limited talk of FBI manipulation.

Subsequently, they convinced the judge to disallow any testimony from Myrtle Poor Bear in the actual trial for, of all things, being a poor witness. First corner done, next couple set up.

In the mid-1970s intelligence agencies were being heavily investigated for constitutional and legal violations. One of the investigations was called the Church Hearings: it was found, among other things, that the FBI was actively involved in manipulating activist organizations by having people on the inside as a part of their CoIntelPro operations -- both spies and agent provocateurs.

One such known AIM infiltrator was Douglas Durham. He was outed by AIM after he continually pushed for violent reaction, and later publicly admitted his FBI backing. But the pre-trial ruling made it all but impossible to discuss this in Leonard's trial.

It was discovered after the trial that there were numerous more like Durham. These people gave the FBI tremendous power in shaving and shaping situations from within AIM. The ruling muted talk of FBI infiltration using spies and agent provocateurs, let alone the scale that was uncovered later -- Internal FBI manipulation corner rounded? Check.

Next corner: change the perception of the conditions of the environment on the Pine Ridge reservation. In the same pre-trial ruling, they managed to mute that discussion as well.

But it was relevant as it was needed to explain as to why AIM was present, and why the situation was highly charged. Pine Ridge at the time had the highest per capita murder rate in the world, and that violence could be traced to what now would be considered hate crimes (the murder of Raymond Yellow Thunder for one).

Another environmental factor was the tacit FBI support given to a corrupt tribal leader, Dick Wilson, who was giving away mineral rights to multi-national corporations. The people objecting to this situation, the Traditionals, were who Leonard and the American Indian Movement pledged to support. They were both being targeted for that resistance. This lack of information in the trial makes it difficult to explain how violence could erupt, and when it does, it can make AIM appear to be the aggressor. Corner three shaved.

Final corner. They have a gun, it’s Peltier’s, it matches a bullet from the scene, case closed, no need for shaving, right? Nope. On appeal, years later, a Freedom of Information release shows the FBI lab stated that Leonard’s rifle “contains a different firing pin than that rifle used.” But they left that part out of the trial. Square peg is rounded.

With all these facts understood, Reynolds’s letter to Obama calling for Justice and his later statement to the press about rounding some corners, make perfect sense. His conscience caught up with him. He ultimately wasn’t comfortable going to the grave knowing he immorally put Leonard into a 40-year-hole.