Indictment against AIM suspect should be dismissed, attorney says
By Rapid City Journal staff | Saturday, February 07, 2009
The murder indictment against a man charged in the 1975 [or '76] slaying of Annie Mae Aquash should be dismissed, his attorney says, because the federal government is using two different theories to prosecute two men for the same crime.
Richard Marshall and John Graham are both facing first-degree murder charges in U.S. District Court in connection with the death of Aquash, a fellow American Indian Movement member. A third man, Arlo Looking Cloud, was convicted in February 2004 for his part in the case and is serving a life sentence in prison.
Marshall’s attorney, Dana Hanna, has filed a motion asking that the indictment against his client be dismissed because Marshall is being denied due process and a fair trial.
In the motion, Hanna said federal prosecutors have theorized that Marshall provided the gun used to murder Aquash, whose body was found on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in February 1976.
However, in Looking Cloud’s 2004 trial, prosecutors offered testimony of Richard Two Elk. In his motion, Hanna wrote that Two Elk “testified that Looking Cloud had admitted to him on several occasions that he, Looking Cloud, had given the murder weapon — a revolver — to John Graham at the scene of the murder and that Graham then shot Aquash in the head.”
The government has not yet filed a response to the motion.
Meanwhile, attorneys are still waiting for a new trial date in the case. Hanna had asked that the trial, scheduled for Feb. 24, be delayed to give him more time to prepare because of the large amount of evidence in the case.
U.S. District Judge Lawrence Piersol granted the extension but has not set a new trial date.
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TRIAL BRIEF by Vine Richard Marshall (Hanna, Dana) (Entered: 01/27/2009) [Note from the John Graham Defense Committee: Page two of this document states, "In the trial of Arlo Looking Cloud and in the government's appellate brief for the Court of Appeals in Looking Cloud’s appeal, the United States Attorney made clear and unequivocal factual statements that are directly contrary to the factual claims they will be making in the trial of Richard Marshall, which facts go to critical contested factual issues in the case."]
