KFAI’s Indian Uprising for March 16, 2008 from 7:00 - 8:00 p.m. DST #257

Leonard Peltier vs. FBI, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, Case No. 07-1745MN, University of St. Thomas School of Law Frey Moot Courtroom, Minneapolis, March 11, 2008.

Peltier was convicted of killing two FBI agents during a 1975 shootout on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota. But his supporters, including some human rights groups, believe that he is innocent and that he was targeted because of his political activism.

About 3,500 pages were turned over for Peltier's original trial in 1977. But his attorneys have discovered over the years that the actual number of documents the FBI has on Peltier is 142,579, said attorney Michael Kuzma.

Peltier has tried for nearly seven years to use the federal Freedom of Information Act to get the tens of thousands of pages still being withheld. "I just think this thing stinks to high heaven," Kuzma said after the hearing. He told the court, "We still don't know the truth about what happened back then."

Judge Lavenski R. Smith asked Kuzma what the remedy would be for Peltier.
Kuzma said the court should conduct "a full in-camera review of the documents." When Smith expressed some disbelief at that idea, Kuzma added that, if that were too burdensome, the court could focus on the documents from 1977, of which Peltier has received none.

Tom Byron, an attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., argued that "there's no support" for an in-camera inspection of the records. - St. Paul Pioneer Press excerpt, http://www.twincities.com/ci_8539140?nclick_check=1
Listen to court recording: http://8cc-www.ca8.uscourts.gov/OAaudio/2008/3/071745.MP3

Guests are:

Michael Kuzma, Arguing attorney for Leonard Peltier; Sr. Legislative Assistant to City Council President, Buffalo, New York

Keith Rabin,; Supporter and activist, Leonard Peltier Commemoration Project; Producer and co-playwright, My Life Is My Sundance; artist; Native American Landscape, Inc.