Leonard Peltier Appeals Ruling That Wrongly Endorsed Federal Jurisdication Over Indian Territory

Leonard Peltier Defense Committee
http://www.leonardpeltier.org/



Leonard Peltier Appeals Ruling That Wrongly EndorsedFederal Jurisdiction Over Indian Territory

Appeal Seeks To Revise Sentence Of Native American Political Prisoner

Olympia, WA - On Friday, September 23rd, the legal defense team for Leonard Peltier, the Internationally-known Native American Political Prisoner, filed an appeal to a U.S. District Court decision which wrongly endorsed federal jurisdiction over Indian Territory.

The appeal seeks to overturn the denial of Peltier's Motion to correct the illegal sentence imposed upon him by the federal courts.

In July, the U.S. District Court of North Dakota wrongly ruled that the alleged crimes did not have to occur within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States to be prosecuted under federal law. However, Indian Country is sovereign land and the U.S. has no jurisdiction under the statutes with which Leonard was charged unless acts occur "within the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States."

"We feel that the Court blatantly ignored jurisdiction laws when it denied Leonards original motion," said Leonard Peltier Defense Committee lead counsel Barry Bachrach. "We hope that this appeal will convince the Court that it had no jurisdiction to convict Mr. Peltier under the crimes for which he was convicted, those convictions must be set aside as a matter of law. The history of the constitution, and the statutes implicated, unequivocally establish that Mr. Peltier was not convicted under the Indian Crimes Act, which is the only possible authority under which the government could have tried and convicted Mr. Peltier."

Following a fraudulent trial featuring withheld documents, witnesses intimidation, and false testimony, among other irregularities, Peltier was tried, convicted and sentenced to two consecutive life sentences for the deaths of two FBI agents on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation on June 26, 1975. Peltier was falsely convicted on a two-count indictment for first-degree murder, even though the acts at issue all occurred on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

"As it has countless times in the past, the federal government has trampled over indigenous sovereignty," Wanbli Watakpe (aka Russ Redner), Director of the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee. "This precedent does not just affect Leonard Peltier but the Lakota Nation and all sovereign nations that have a relationship with the US."

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Join the LPDC in combating the human rights violations against Leonard Peltier.
For more information, please visit the LPDC website http://www.leonardpeltier.org/ or email info@leonardpeltier.org