The day Janklow ended Leonard Peltier's bid for freedom

It was around 2 a.m. when Rollyn Samp’s phone rang.

The call came in on a special phone line that Samp, a longtime political operative, had installed for his friend, Gov. Bill Janklow. It wasn’t unusual for Janklow to call Samp in the early morning hours.

On this call in December, 2000, Janklow told Samp that he had just returned from a trip to Washington, D.C., where he’d met with President Bill Clinton. Janklow and Clinton had known each other a long time, first as attorney generals of their respective states in the 1970s and later as governors. They were friends, and what was supposed to have been a quick visit ended with Janklow spending the afternoon at the White House.

But despite the cozy personal relationship, Janklow was uneasy that his trip might end in failure.

Janklow’s sole purpose in flying to Washington was to implore Clinton not to release Leonard Peltier from prison. Peltier, convicted in 1977 for the murder of two FBI agents on the Pine Ridge Reservation in 1975, had requested executive clemency from Clinton.

Current and retired FBI agents were lobbying Clinton not to release Peltier, who was a bodyguard with the American Indian Movement. But Clinton was also being lobbied hard by supporters of Peltier. Over the years, Peltier became an international cause by those who felt he had been framed for the murders or by those who saw him as a symbol of injustice to Native Americans. Calls for his release have come from the likes of Hollywood moguls, peace activists like the late Nelson Mandela and Coretta Scott King and human rights organizations including Amnesty International and the National Congress of American Indians.

Back home that night in South Dakota, Janklow told Samp he wasn’t sure what Clinton would do.

“He said, ‘I tried every tactic I could think of on him,’” Samp recalled Janklow telling him. “And he said he didn’t know what Clinton would do.”

Ultimately, Janklow succeeded. Clinton left office a month later without acting on Peltier’s request. An aide to Clinton acknowledged that Janklow had been persuasive. In an interview in January 2001, Janklow said: “I am probably the one who’s responsible for Leonard Peltier not getting out.” But until now, the details surrounding his involvement, and the doubts he had about whether he would succeed, have not been made public.

Today, 16 years later, Peltier, 71, faces a similar situation. A new clemency petition has been filed with President Barack Obama, who is also getting ready to leave office, a time when presidents often grant pardons or clemency. Peltier is in frail health, suffering from diabetes and an aortic aneurysm that, if it blows, would mean certain death. He resides in a maximum security federal prison in Coleman, Fla.

Peltier has been the source of an intense debate for decades, with two intractable sides at odds over his fate. Prominent national and international figures and organizations have called for his release. Others say he should die in prison.

Cynthia Dunne, a former federal prosecutor, recently joined Peltier’s legal team and helped draft his petition for clemency. She said the government’s conduct in Peltier’s trial, which included withholding exculpatory evidence, would today result in sanctions against federal prosecutors and the FBI. The government misconduct only came to light following the release of documents under the Freedom of Information Act.

Peltier’s arrest came at a time of intense unrest on the Pine Ridge Reservation, she added. It was two years after the Wounded Knee occupation, murders were frequent and the federal and local police forces on the reservation were behaving like a paramilitary force.

“We’re hoping that President Obama will see past the rhetoric and take the time to look at the case with fresh eyes and an equitable view of what went on here,” she said.

“If he dies in prison,” she added, “I think it’s one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in the nation’s history.”

In his petition to Obama, Peltier asks the president to evaluate the tumultuous situation in Indian Country during the 1970s “through today’s lens and worldview.” He maintains his assertion that he was only one of dozens involved in a gunfight.

“As set forth at the beginning of this petition, I am deeply remorseful about the deaths that occurred on June 26, 1975 and the pain that all impacted have endured,” he says. “There are, however, many mitigating factors that led up to the events of that day, which influenced the actions of all persons involved.”

Peltier’s legal team attempted to meet FBI Director James Comey to discuss the clemency petition. The FBI, Dunne said, responded with a letter saying it stood behind the conviction.

“We cannot and will not advocate for . . . clemency for Mr. Peltier as his crimes challenge the rule of law our criminal justice system is based on,” the letter, according to Dunne, says.

It’s a position that Janklow, who died in 2012, would agree with.

“In all our conversations over the years, he never made it personal,” Samp said. “He said, ‘All you have to do is read the record and that Leonard Peltier is guilty and he should never get out.’”

“Bill told me that he was totally convinced that Peltier was guilty,” said David Volk, another friend of Janklow who served in Janklow’s administration.

It was a sense of urgency that put Janklow on a plane to Washington on Dec. 7, 2000. It was also classic Janklow, who was well known by then for taking control of a situation and acting unilaterally. Few people – even his chief of staff – knew about the trip until after it happened. Janklow just took off on his own.

“He had a friendship with Clinton,” Samp said. “He was probably the only person who could go in and articulate the case in a way Bill Clinton could understand it.”

He had the added benefit of having been there.

In a 1990 interview with director Michael Apted, Janklow talked about the events on Pine Ridge. A transcript of the interview, which Apted made for his documentary "Incident at Oglala," is in the Janklow archives at the University of South Dakota.

On June 26, 1975, Janklow was six months into his term as attorney general. He got a call from the state radio office saying that agents had reported taking fire and being hit on Pine Ridge. The head of the Highway Patrol balked about intervening, telling Janklow state police didn’t have authority on the reservation.

Janklow called Fall River County Sheriff Jack Manke to see if the sheriff was willing to go.

"I called the sheriff in Hot Springs, and I said, 'Jack, are you aware of what's happening on Pine Ridge?'" Janklow told Apted. "He said, 'I'm listening to it.' I said, 'What'll it take to get you to go on there?' He said, 'All you've got to do is ask.' I said, 'Call up your reserves.' And he said, "They're on their way, they're rolling.'"

After the call, Janklow and agents with the Division of Criminal Investigation gathered weapons and boarded a state plane for Hot Springs. Nearly two months earlier, Janklow had ordered a tear gas barrage on armed Indians who had taken over a meat packing plant at Wagner. After state law officers wrested control of the plant from the AIM members, Janklow had been critical of the federal government’s response to violence in Indian Country.

Now, they were on their way to help the FBI. By the time they arrived on the scene, Peltier and about 40 others were holed up in the Jumping Bull compound, which was on a plateau. Federal and local law officers were setting up a perimeter. It was quiet.

Then shooting erupted. Law officers stormed the compound. Janklow watched as people who had been in the compound escaped on foot.

"And the -- the people that had been in the compound got away and went to the north," Janklow recounted. "They went to the south. And you could see them out on the prairies, oh, half a mile away, mile away. I mean, you could see them for about 45 minutes as they worked their way up to the pine ridges to the south. But there were no vehicles you could -- too many ravines and -- I mean, there was just no way to get over there."

In a valley below the compound, they found the shot up car that Special Agents Jack Coler and Ronald Williams had been driving in when they were ambushed. The agents had been searching for a robbery suspect when they began taking fire and calling for help.

The help had not arrived in time. Their bodies were on the road next to the car. They'd clearly been executed with point-blank gunshots to their heads.

"I mean, when you walked up there, the bodies were laying there, it was the middle of the summertime, they'd been dead for a while, they had serious wounds, a lot of flies," Janklow said. "I mean, it was just -- it was just a terrible scene. I mean, there's no other way to describe it. There was a terrible scene."

Federal authorities took over the scene, with hundreds of agents descending on the area. Janklow and his state officials left that night.

Janklow relayed those events to Clinton on the afternoon when he made his trip to Washington. And though he privately fretted to Samp about what would happen in his early-morning phone call, Janklow was ultimately persuasive.

“He was passionate about this,” Samp said.

At the very least, it cost Peltier another 16 years of freedom.