LJWorld.com / Clinton to review Peltier case

Archive for Monday, November 27, 2000

President says the clemency request needs ‘an honest look-see’

The Associated Press

November 27, 2000

Washington — The White House says President Clinton will review all pending requests for executive clemency before he leaves office in January, including that of Leonard Peltier, the American Indian activist convicted of murdering two FBI agents in South Dakota.

The president "will focus on all of the clemency cases after the election and that will be one of them," White House spokesman Daniel Cruise said Sunday.

Also Sunday, the White House released the transcript of Clinton's Nov. 7 interview with radio station WBAI-FM in New York City in which the president was asked about the Peltier case.

Clinton said then that he would review all clemency applications "and see what the merits dictate ... based on the evidence."

Asked specifically about Peltier, Clinton said he has "never had time actually to sit down myself and review that case."

"I know it's very important to a lot of people, maybe on both sides of the issue," he said. "And I think I owe it to them to give it an honest look-see."

On June 26, 1975, FBI agents Ronald A. Williams and Jack R. Coler pursued a robbery suspect into the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. A shootout erupted with activists from the American Indian Movement.

Two suspects were acquitted and a third freed for lack of evidence.

Peltier, after fleeing to Canada and being extradited to the United States, was convicted and sentenced to two consecutive life terms in 1977, despite defense claims that evidence against him had been falsified.

Peltier, 56, is serving the terms at the U.S. Penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kan. He has suffered from health problems in recent years.

In June, a parole examiner recommended that Peltier's sentences be continued until at least 2008.

MORE: www.freepeltier.org;

www.noparolepeltier.com