[IPSM] John already recharged. Re: Charges against John Graham Dropped!!!!!

[Macdonald Stainsby]

U.S. prosecutors file new charges in 1975 slaying of Canadian

The Associated Press

October 3, 2008 at 4:03 PM EDT

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — U.S. prosecutors filed a new complaint Friday 
against a Vancouver man less than two hours after a judge dismissed the 
indictment in the slaying of a Canadian Mi'kmaq woman 32 years ago.

John Graham was scheduled to stand trial Monday in Rapid City on a 
charge of first-degree murder for the 1975 shooting death of Anna Mae 
Aquash on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation when both were affiliated 
with the American Indian Movement.

The ruling means Monday's trial will be called off but the case will 
proceed under a new complaint and will likely go before grand jurors again.

Mr. Graham is now charged with three alternative counts of first-degree 
murder for committing and aiding and abetting others in the killing of 
Ms. Aquash on or about Dec. 12, 1975, near Wanblee, according to a news 
release from U.S. Attorney Marty Jackley.

The Globe and Mail

Mr. Graham is from the Tsimshian tribe in the Yukon and for four years 
fought his return to South Dakota. He was extradited in December after 
the Supreme Court of Canada refused to review his case.

Ms. Aquash was a member of the Mi'kmaq Tribe. Her family had her remains 
exhumed from an Oglala grave in 2004 and reburied in her native Nova Scotia.

Judge Lawrence Piersol filed his response Friday to a request from Mr. 
Graham's lawyer, John Murphy, that the indictment be dismissed on 
grounds the United States didn't have jurisdiction.

Mr. Graham and Ms. Aquash were Canadian citizens and members of Canadian 
tribes, but the indictment doesn't show that either is a member of a 
federally recognized American Indian tribe, which the law requires, he 
argued.

Mr. Jackley and Assistant U.S. Attorney Bob Mandel argued at a hearing 
Thursday that the indictment was sufficient because the other man 
indicted and already convicted, Arlo Looking Cloud, does fit the 
definition of Indian.

Mr. Looking Cloud is an Oglala Lakota originally from Pine Ridge. The 
indictment would allow jurors to find that Mr. Graham aided and abetted 
Mr. Looking Cloud, the prosecutors argued.

Judge Piersol rejected that.

“There is no authority for this proposition. The aiding and abetting 
statute is simply another means of convicting someone of the underlying 
substantive offence, which in this case is murder,” he wrote.

“There is no dispute that the superseding indictment fails to set forth 
Graham's Indian status. An indictment must set forth the essential 
elements of the offence charged or it is fatally defective.”

Mr. Murphy said he had no comment on the decision or the new complaint. 
Mr. Jackley was unavailable to comment.

One of Aquash's two daughters, Denise Maloney Pictou of Halifax, said 
earlier this week family members were preparing to travel to Rapid City 
for the trial. She said Friday they would wait to comment about the 
judge's decision.

Mr. Looking Cloud was convicted in 2004 and sentenced to a mandatory 
life prison term but could qualify for parole.

Apparently he was ready to testify at Mr. Graham's trial.

Mr. Looking Cloud was at a Louisiana prison but his status with the 
federal Bureau of Prisons indicates he's “in status” and he's currently 
listed as an inmate in a western South Dakota jail.

A third AIM member, Richard Marshall, is scheduled to stand trial in 
February in Sioux Falls on a charge of aiding and abetting Ms. Aquash's 
murder.

Witnesses at Mr. Looking Cloud's trial said he, Mr. Graham and another 
AIM member, Theda Clarke, drove Ms. Aquash from Denver and that Mr. 
Graham shot Ms. Aquash in the Badlands as she begged for her life.

Ms. Clarke, who lives in a nursing home in western Nebraska, has not 
been charged.

Mr. Graham has denied killing Ms. Aquash but acknowledges being in the 
car from Denver.

Some speculated Ms. Aquash was killed by AIM members because she knew 
some of them were government spies, while others said she was executed 
because she herself was an informant. Federal authorities have said Ms. 
Aquash was not an informant and they had nothing to do with her death.

Ms. Aquash, 30, was among the Indian militants who occupied the village 
of Wounded Knee in a 71-day standoff with federal authorities in 1973 
that included an exchange of gunfire with agents who surrounded the village.


Macdonald Stainsby wrote:
> U.S. indictment against man charged in 1975 slaying of Canadian woman 
> dismissed
> 
> 1 hour ago
> 
> SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — A judge in South Dakota has dismissed the indictment 
> against a Canadian man in the decades-old slaying of Annie Mae Aquash, a 
> fellow Canadian aboriginal activist.
> 
> John Graham was charged with the shooting death of Aquash on the Pine 
> Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota in 1975. Both Graham and 
> Aquash,, a Mi'kmaq from Pictou, N.S., were affiliated with the American 
> Indian Movement.
> 
> Graham's lawyer asked federal Judge Lawrence Piersol to dismiss the 
> indictment against his client on technical grounds.
> 
> The lawyer argued that the U.S. government didn't have jurisdiction 
> because the accused and victim were both members of Canadian tribes.
> 
> Prosecutors argued that the indictment was sound because the other man 
> indicted and already convicted, Arlo Looking Cloud, fits the U.S. 
> definition of Indian.
> 
> Although Monday's scheduled trial in Rapid City, S.D., is now off, 
> officials say prosecutors can seek another indictment against Graham.
>