John Graham’s attorney asks for later trial March 4, 2008

John Graham’s attorney asks for later trial
Man charged in AIM activist’s death seeks to move trial to Sept. 15.

By Heidi Bell Gease, Rapid City Journal staff
Monday, March 03, 2008

The defense attorney for John Graham, the Canadian man charged with fatally shooting Anna Mae Aquash, has asked that Graham’s trial be postponed.

Graham, 52, is charged with murder in connection with the death of Aquash, a fellow American Indian Movement member who died in December 1975 on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

Graham, of British Columbia, is currently scheduled to stand trial June 17 in U.S. District Court in Rapid City.

In a motion filed Feb. 28, defense attorney John Murphy asked that Graham’s trial be moved to Sept. 15 or later in order to allow more time to prepare for trial.

According to the motion, the government has so far provided the defense with 4,263 documents, not including transcripts, as well as 112 audio tapes of witness interviews.

“Defense counsel has spent nearly 43 hours of time at the jail with Defendant Graham reviewing discovery documents, to date, we have only been able to get through the first 600 documents,” the motion states. “More time will be needed to review and sort through the voluminous discovery in this case in order to adequately prepare for trial.”

In the motion, Graham agreed to waive his right to a speedy trial.

No judge’s ruling had been filed as of Monday.

Another man charged in Aquash’s death, Fritz Arlo Looking Cloud, was tried and convicted of first-degree murder after a 2004 trial in Rapid City. He was sentenced to life in prison.

Contact Heidi Bell Gease at 394-8419 or heidi.bell[at]rapidcityjournal.com