IMPORTANT: You must confirm your signature by clicking on a confirmation "prompt" - otherwise your signature will not register on the petition!!! Thank you!

The judicial system is very broken. It must be fixed.
There are four people who can do the job:
Everybody, Somebody, Anybody, and Nobody.
Everybody thinks Somebody will surely do it.
It is a job Anybody can do. But Nobody is doing it.
At least I'm trying. What are you doing?

 

___________________

 

Dear Friends,

Let me tell you a true story%u2026

I read this case about four Native Americans who were wrongfully convicted in 1994 sixteen years ago and they have been imprisoned in various diverse federal prisons over the sixteen years, they are switched from prison to prison about every 2 to 3 years. And there is an order that the men have to be kept separate, so although they are all four related, two brothers and two cousins, they are not housed in the same federal prison.

After reading the transcript I thought it was very clear they were not getting due process and equal protection as one requires in a court of law. The men were convicted of sexual assault of their nieces %u2013 and there was NO evidence. The only alleged evidence were the statements by the four children. The children had been taken out of their home, these children over a period of time were manipulated, controlled and brainwashed by a social worker who had a motive to make the false accusations against one of the men; manipulated, controlled and brainwashed by a foster mother who had been sent 18 children, these are a lot of children to be a mother too, but money was the motivating factor here. And we have written records of these interviews and each and every one of these records documents the fact that they gave the children questions that had the answers to the questions included already; this is unlawful and also horrendous.  The children were then send to a therapist and kept well manipulated and controlled, then to a doctor for examination for any physical evidence. The doctor did keep notes which I have not jet seen, but the doctor at trial testified that he was not very experienced and had not done this very often and could not come to a conclusion. So he called in another doctor who performed a colposcopy. Now colposcopy is a strategy it uses a camera and they use dyes so they can see what happened in the child vagina and anus so they can see if there is any documentary evidence of assault or molestation. The primary purpose of a colposcopy is to take a picture, now the doctor who performed the procedure did not take pictures? and this doe s not make any sense. Now between you and me he probably did take pictures but the pictures showed nothing! %u2013 Which is why he suddenly came in and said he took no pictures? It makes no sense either legally, logically nor medically. So when the judge asked on of the children does she know the difference between a truth and a lie the child nodded her head %u201Cyes%u201D(remarked on by the stenographer), when the judge asked what is the truth she said %u201CI can go home again%u201D what is a lie %u201CI can%u2019t go home again%u201D. The children had been told certain things, and there is documentary evidence of this, if they say %u2018this%u2019 they can go home again and if they say %u2018that%u2019 they cannot go home again, it has nothing to  with telling the truth, just giving the right answer in the context of the trial so they could get the children to court.

 

Now the interesting thing about this case is really the political history of the Indians and the Indian movement. Now these men range in ages but they really are a little to too young to be part of the Russell Means Wounded Knee demonstration although I did hear that the family did donate weapons to the AIM movement. The agents on the Indian reservations, BIA placed these agents and it is very well documented that these agents were very corrupt. There is not one treaty that has not been broken. From the Fort Laramie Treaty with its %u2018Bad Men%u2019 clause it went on and on and on, one treaty after another was broken. Even at Wounded Knee, and again this is very well documented, the reason why the Indian retaliated was because they were starving. The land they wee given was not farmable and had no water. The said they would feed them and give some money for the land. There is an American who actually became a Multi Millionaire from the wealth of the Black Hills. There were are multi million of acres being sold of to the whites to the disadvantage to the Indians. I was told this was the greatest country here so it comes as quite a shock that every treaty that has been made with the Indians in the last 100 years has never been kept by the US government and that is disillusioning at best. This does not mean to say that the US is a bad country and many people are good people but I think in this regard it is unforgivable what they did. This is essentially cultural genocide. Part of the law was to remove these children from their families; they were force to not speak their language to become supposedly white, just like a red Oriel cookie, white on the inside and red on the outside, just like an Oriel Cookie. One of the defendants of this case is a prime example of this history%u201D when he was removed to a catholic school by priests and nuns and when he was in first grade one of the other native children did not know how to spell the word %u2018maybe%u2019, so when he went to help this child the nun made him stand on a chair, put some clay or something in this mouth and then of course beat him, all because he was trying to help another first-grader %u2013 now this is clearly insanity. Now is first grader is one of the men who are wrongfully convicted in a federal prison, Now the object of this is they are clearly trying to get rid of  all the healthy and outspoken Indians so they cannot interfere with any corruption. Now let me regress a little bit more, so they cut off all the children%u2019s hair and the hair has great cultural significance and they did not get to go home often, maybe once or twice a year and many of them were kept for many years. They either went into an institution or a foster home and they really lost their identity as an Indian child.

A hundred years later, let%u2019s fast forward to the 19th century. Neither the Indian agents nor the presidents were innocent. Because they put the BIA in control there was a lot of skimming off the top and the breaking of all the treaties caused the birth of AIM, all this was settled after 70 odd days. There are very many different stories about what went on, in the official government version everything is wonderful but there are other version like the Mary Crow Dogs story %u2018Lakota Woman%u2019 in which she describes women and children being fired at with heavy machinery. When it was finally over and the Indians handed their weapons over there were old rusty rifles from good knows when, they were not sophisticated weapons at all. It just was %u2018%u2019bizarre%u2019 and this was in the 70ties. In the following decades the movement did not stop, a very trying period of time those previous two decades. Now the case we want your help on the prosecution of the men starts in 1993; but these previous two decades literally 73 to 93 were filled with a great deal of desperation and activism by the Indians. One of the men%u2019s brothers Roderick in the early 70ties had got a job with the tribe, but the man Larry Cournoyer that was appointed head of tribal council paid of a lot of people and also sold of a lot of land to whites and pocketed money was supposed to go to the Indians. So Roderick Rouse got fired after working just one day because the Rouse family did not agree with selling off Indian land to the whites. And this family the Cournoyers is still in power up to this day. And that animosity continued over a period of time. That same family is still in power in 2010 and while most people on the reservation suffer all kinds of deprivation and poverty, many starving, no jobs, %u2018deprivation of humanity%u2019 one might say the Cournoyer family continues to be corrupt owning cars, houses, general wealth and enjoying the %u2018benefits%u2019 of white society, they have made lots of money and have plenty to pay of anybody. So Rod had his problems and Jesse had his. Also during this time another one of the defendants Desmond, had been working at the casino and again money had been ripped of by the casino and the BIA and he Desmond was involved in a sit-in at the tribal headquarters, which had formerly been one of the schools, so they the people could change the administrative heads of the casino because the money was not being fed back to the community but skimmed off the top again and pocketed by who else but the Cournoyer family again. Now one woman who lost her job at the casino as a result of this sit-in was a woman by the name of Jane Brock who later became a social worker for the tribal council and she was the one who made up the allegations against the men, she wanted to get Desmond. Now arising out of each of these stories of these four men are the motives for retaliation, now this is what this case is, political retaliation against these men for their political positions of wanting to clean up corruption! No more bribes, no more selling the reservation to the white settlers, no more corruption, give the people the money so they can fix up where they live. For instance the place were these people lived had closets but no doors and they cut not put the doors on themselves because it had to be approved. So for twenty off years they did not get approval to put on the doors on the closets, which is ironic because one of the children said they were locked in a closet when there were no closets with a door to lock

And the judge was just incredibly bad, incredibly bad, a bigot. There was in fact an outside person, a teacher who worked with another teacher who was a juror who actually came forward and said: %u201CHey look, this jury is being corrupted by this woman. We have heart it in the school these stories that she tells jokes about these Indians, she is one of the most bigoted people that I know.%u201D And of course the judge chose not to believe her and he did not call a mistrial. That woman Verna Severson, her brother is now a Supreme Court judge, but if he is thinking similarly to his sister there may be a chance with this case going back to court, if there ever is a chance going back to court, going back with a judge who has heart everything from day one and after that is wrong. Now this would be a futile exercise and the law does not require the doing of a futile exercise. There is however another aspect I have not really focussed on and these are the children: The children were as much victims as were the defendants. The children were brainwashed, they have become alcoholics, some of them drug users, one of them tried to commit suicide, now this young man is working at the moment but he is chronically depressed. The children, now adults suffer, they feel guilty that they chose their uncles. And they were so young, one was one year old, one was 2, another 4, one was 6 %u2013 I think it went up to age 9 at the time of the children that were involved. It%u2019s like when you tell a child that at Christmas Santa Claus and the Reindeer are going to fly through their chimney and drop off their toys, and they believe it %u2013 at this age children still believe that reindeer fly! And so naturally the children were told certain things when they were young, so they could go home, they all missed Mummy, and now of course they are suffering from guilt. Of course they were to young to know any different, they are blameless they had no malice they did not know they did lie they had no intent to lie%u2026 they were simply repeating what other people in authoritarian roles, who were in charge and supposedly somebody they should follow, they were simply mimicking what these people told them to say. So the children are really innocent but as they have grown older they are suffering from that guilt, wrongfully placed guilt %u2013 but if you are 2, 4 or 6 years old and when you grow up to be 12, 14, 16 you begin wondering %u201Cwhere are my uncles? I remember seeing pictures of my uncles? Everybody is talking about my uncles? And then you realize they are in jail!! And they are in jail because we said such and such but they really didn%u2019t! Can you imagine the guilt that these children feel?

So we have all kinds of different scenarios, the children%u2019s life%u2019s were ruined. One interesting thing one of the defendants happened to say was that when they took the children, and this is verified in writing, in reports and so forth, they removed about a dozen kids give or take and some of the older ones would not go along with it, they said :%u201DNo, no, no, nothing happened.%u201D So this situation is before the men were arrested because they took the kids ahead of time. The men were not arrested at this time they were still living at grandma%u2019s house and there were many many people living at grandma%u2019s house %u2013 at some point of to 25 people in one small house. So the privacy to sexually molest a child was really unheard of anyway. But aside from that they sent the older children that did not cooperate back to the house with the %u2018dangerous%u2019 men? So clearly if the defendants were so sick, so bad and dangerous why did they sent the children back to the house who were not arrested by then? But they did keep the younger ones because those were the ones that they could manipulate and brainwash. This is a very valid point: Why did they send the older children back? The ones that refused to say that their uncles had done anything bad?

Now in the Indian culture, these two brothers and two cousins, according to the children these were all their uncles %u2013 but the red community does not define uncle in the same way the white community defines uncle, e.g. I have one brother and therefore my children have one uncle from my side. It is not the same way, in one large native family all the men of the same age will be uncle, see the children refer to all the men as uncles although in white genealogical terms not all the defendants were the uncles of all the children.

The judge appointed the defendants attorneys, because they had no money. This is federal court in a complicated case with many issues %u2013 although the charge was not complicated the issues certainly were! One lawyer had never had a trial, one had maybe had one trial, another had maybe little more experience and one was a retired judge interestingly. But they did not do the discovery and the investigation of the motives, they did not call witnesses they should have called, they have done no work in defending these men whatsoever! They should have gone a little bit into the culture, not as deeply as the Fort Laramie Treaty no, but certainly the later events in the 70ties and 80ties in which this family had been involved as being politically active. And that is what they wanted, they wanted to get the politically active Indians out of the reservation, away from political activism and into jail where they would be powerless to do anything, powerless to fight the corruption that was ongoing, powerless to do anything about the bribes that were happening, powerless to say anything about the treaties not being followed and complied with. These attorneys did not even do one sentence worth of investigation and discovery to this end.

Now this is important to know, apparently some of the children were playing around with each other and all the children are pretty consistent about it and in fact the children recanted. I will go on to that in a minute. The attorneys themselves refused to call witnesses whom the defendants believed would testify on their behalf! When they did call certain people the court would not allow them to testify. The attorneys further messed up by not filing certain motions in what we call a %u2018timely fashion%u2019, certain motions had to be files x number of days before the trial, and the attorneys even though they knew of this months ahead of time did not file the stuff. So when it came to the time to introduce evidence the judge said:%u201D No, you%u2019re late.%u201D And that evidence was hence never produced. But the children had been playing, messing around with each other and one of the older girls had been messing around with one of the older boys in an abandoned building not far form where the house was on the reservation.

So there was other evidence and none of it ever came into the trial. So if you were going to believe those doctors that some of the girls had evidence of being physically assaulted or signs of sexual intercourse, so if you are going to believe that that was true, then there was an alternative person who did it, another youngster. I mean kids that are age 12 and 14 are going to mess around , clearly in this day and age they do and although this was nearly 2 decades ago nevertheless it was still prevalent. It has always been this way; children messing around with other children, playing doctors and nurses has been around for years also. So they wanted to have an individual psychologist, that was not allowed, The expert, actually he was quite good he is deceased now, he wanted to interview the children prior to trial and say his preclusions and that was not allowed, all kinds of things in defense of the men were simply not allowed. The judge was almost like the head of the brotherhood that was against the defendants, it was like not a conspiracy but let%u2019s just say that the prosecutor has since become a chief judge in South Dakota Federal Court, the other people got good jobs, some of them hid out and moved out elsewhere, each one of them benefitted in some financial or economic way for pursuing the path they took against the defendants and for getting them jailed so really quite horrendous!

So they did not have due process and certainly no equal protection above all; they were able to cross-examine those that testified so that was fine but part of due process is fundamental fairness and that fundamental fairness consists of notice and the opportunity to defend oneself and even the opportunity to defend oneself is dual pronged. One is the opportunity to cross-examine your accusers, but they never really brought the real accusers there, one accuser took the stand but the attorneys did not really cross examine and it was horrendous to read. And the second prong was an opportunity to present your own defense and of course they were not able to, because these people were either too precluded or some of the testimony was precluded so they really did not have due process and certainly equal protection as far as Native Americans are concerned was non-existent. I think if they had had 200,000$ to pay some decent attorney they would not be in prison today.

 

________________________Native Sun News: Yankton men seek justice after 17 yearsThursday, April 28, 2011Filed Under: Law 
The following story was written and reported by Ernestine Chasing Hawk. All content � Native Sun News. MARTY, SOUTH DAKOTA %u2014 The accusations were bizarre and originally five men were charged. Since the trial all of the alleged victims have recanted their trial testimony but four men remain in prison where they have been for the last 17 years. Barbara C. Johnson, attorney turned author is writing a book on the case that exposes a conspiracy between a prosecutor, a judge, a social workers, a therapist and court appointed attorneys that tried the 1994 case in a South Dakota courtroom. %u201CAfter reading the transcript of their trial, I, not as a practicing attorney but as an attorney-turned-author, concluded that the defendants did not get due process and equal protection as constitutionally required in a court of law. These four men are innocent,%u201D Johnson writes. She said it was clear that the prosecution was looking for a conviction. %u201CProsecutors are supposed to look for justice not just convictions.%u201D Johnson said. The four men are related, two brothers and two cousins, Jesse and Desmond Rouse, Garfield Feather and Russell Hubbeling, and are all from the Yankton Sioux Indian reservation. %u201CThe men were convicted of sexual assault of their nieces. The only alleged evidence consisted of statements by the four children. The children had been taken out of their home, and manipulated, controlled, and brainwashed (a) by a Social Worker, Jean Brock, who had a motive of revenge, (b) by a foster mother who was motivated by then-current and anticipated financial benefits, (c) by a therapist, whose techniques were dubious, and (d) by a guardian ad litem, who did not act in the best interests of the children,%u201D Johnson writes. She states that the medical evidence introduced by the prosecution %u201Ccan be characterized as nothing but suspect %u2013 a smoke-screen.%u201D Johnson points out that Doctors to whom the children were brought provided neither written reports to the defense counsel nor photographs requisite to the colposcopic examinations the children were made to endure. At 4, 5, and 6 years of age, the children were younger than the minimum of 13 years of age recommended in order for colposcopy to be performed. %u201CColposcopy is a technique using a camera and dyes on a vagina and anus to determine whether there is evidence of sexual assault or molestation. In this case, the medical professionals claimed that pictures were not taken. It is likely that any pictures taken showed nothing and were therefore withheld,%u201D she concluded. Johnson laments that a significant by-product of arresting the four Native American men and falsely charging them with crimes %u201Cis the victimization of the children removed from the home and prepared for trial for 5-8 months later. %u201CNow adults, these children suffer not only from feelings of guilt for having testified negatively about their uncles but even more from feeling that no matter what they say they are not believed by the court," Johnson writes. "For instance, at the outset, the children denied that 'anything happened.' After months of threats and manipulation, they testified exactly as they were instructed to do. "On appeal of their uncles%u2019 convictions, the appellate panel, specifically outlining the 'children%u2019s story,' overturned the convictions and remanded for a new trial. The new trial never happened," she writes. "By 2001, having grown older, the children, who had been recanting their false testimony since 1996, finally testified again in court." "Again the judge did not believe the children%u2019s recantations. Depressed and angry and fearful of whites and the courts, some of the children have become alcoholics and drug users. One of these children in this case is so seriously depressed that he has become not only a self-mutilator but has also seriously attempted suicide by slicing his wrists," she continues. The four men, impoverished and unable to afford adequate defense council, used court appointed attorneys. %u201CAlthough the charges against the four defendants were not complicated, the legal issues certainly were and required attorneys with experience and competence. One lawyer had never had a trial, one had maybe had one trial, another had maybe little more experience, and one, interestingly, was a retired judge. Counsel did not conduct discovery; nor did they investigate motives; they did not call witnesses they should have called; they ignored information about which the defendants themselves told their respective counsel,%u201D she writes. Some actions of the attorneys were overtly prejudicial to their clients. They missed statutory deadlines for the filing of certain pleadings. As a result, the judge denied them permission to produce alternative explanations of the alleged sexual abuse. %u201COne can conceive of one, perhaps even two, of the attorneys to miss deadlines, but all four attorneys to miss the deadlines! Unlikely. The attorneys refused to call witnesses whom the defendants believed would testify on their behalf. And when they did call certain people, the judge did not allow them to testify,%u201D Johnson wrote. %u201CFurther, to defend oneself, one must have the opportunity to cross-examine your accusers and to present your own witnesses. The defense counsel failed both to cross-examine the prosecution witnesses and to present the defendants%u2019 defense adequately. The only possible conclusion is that due process and equal protection and fundamental fairness were absent in the criminal case against the four indigenous Americans.%u201D One of the convicted men, Desmond Benedict Rouse, writes, %u201CImagine, yourself as a young innocent man, you had a family, you had children, you had a job, you had a life. Then in an instant it is all taken away from you! And you go to trial, and there is nothing you can say or do to prove your innocence." "You are being accused of sexual assault of your very own children. Your little brothers and little sisters held prisoners for 6 months, and are being forced, being manipulated into submission to make up some of the sickest lies possible," Rouse writes. "All this happens because some career minded prosecutors wish to move up on the proverbial ladder. Yet when you go to trial you are found guilty on the prosecutions very own rehearsed testimony! However there is no evidence that you are guilty.%u201D Rouse would not accept deals offered by the prosecution which would have meant two and a half years behind bars. %u201CYou do not want to plead guilty to a sick crime that was never ever committed,%u201D Rouse said. He is instead sentenced to 30 years behind bars. %u201CYou wait for justice to be done and your new 'fair' trial? When will you get some strong hearted people to help you?" Rouse writes. "When will true justice be done for you? Another year comes to an end, another holiday season spent away from your loved ones. And you are still in prison and still innocent.%u201D Statement of innocence%u201CWe are brothers Jesse and Desmond Rouse and cousins Garfield Feather and Russell Hubbeling. We are four native American men and we are in federal prison because of the selfish reasons of others who conspired for our false imprisonment resulting in malicious prosecution, judicial injustice and impropriety, prosecution for the sake of prosecution, lack of funds for legal aid, insufficiency of the medical expert evidence and ineffective assistance of counsel to prove our innocence and many other errors of one kind or another, we have been wrongfully accused and wrongfully convicted of a crime which we did not commit and have been left to languish resulting in our loss of liberty, civil rights, productive lifestyle, financial and personal ruin, mental anguish, social condemnation and personal and family embarrassment for the remainder of our lives.%u201D %u201CPlease help us if you can! We have been incarcerated being innocent men for 16 years now but we still hope that one day we will be given the change to be exonerated from all these disgusting and fabricated allegations. We just want the truth to be known. We thank you from the heart! Please help us!%u201D You can sign a petition called freedom4yankton4. (Contact Ernestine Chasing Hawk at managingeditor@nsweekly.com)

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 Statement of Actual Innocence

We are Brothers Jesse and Desmond Rouse and Cousins Garfield Feather and Russell Hubbeling. We are four native American men and we are in federal prison because of the selfish reasons of others who conspired for our false imprisonment resulting in malicious prosecution, judicial injustice and impropriety, prosecution for the sake of prosecution, lack of funds for legal aid, insufficiency of the medical expert evidence and ineffective assistance of counsel to prove our innocence and many other errors of one kind or another, we have been wrongfully accused and wrongfully convicted of a crime which we did not commit and have been left to languish resulting in our loss of liberty, civil rights, productive lifestyle, financial and personal ruin, mental anguish, social condemnation and personal and family embarrassment for the remainder of our lives.

We are indigent and we need your help desperately. We have lived and are still living every body�s worst nightmare. 

Please help us if you can! We have been incarcerated being innocent men for 16 years now but we still hope that one day we will be given the change to be exonerated from all these disgusting and fabricated allegations. We just want the truth to be known. We thank you from the heart! Please help us!

_________________________

 WE ARE ALSO LOOKING FOR US CRIMINAL ATTORNEY AND PRIVATE INVESTIGATORS WILLING TO JOIN OUR FIGHT FOR FREEDOM AND JUSTICE FOR THESE FOUR INNOCENT NATIVE AMERCAN MEN. Just leave a message to yankton4@care2.com. 

 

Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868  "Bad Man" clause:

"If bad men among whites or among others subject to the authority of the United States inflicts harm upon a Native American, then the United States shall reimburse that person for the loss sustained."

 

IMPORTANT: You must confirm your signature by clicking on a confirmation "prompt" - otherwise your signature will not register on the petition!!! Thank you!

 WE ARE ALSO LOOKING FOR US CRIMINAL ATTORNEY AND PRIVATE INVESTIGATORS WILLING TO JOIN OUR FIGHT FOR FREEDOM AND JUSTICE FOR THESE FOUR INNOCENT NATIVE AMERCAN MEN. Just leave a message to yankton4@care2.com. 

Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868  "Bad Man" clause:

"If bad men among whites or among others subject to the authority of the United States inflicts harm upon a Native American, then the United States shall reimburse that person for the loss sustained."

IMPORTANT: You must confirm your signature by clicking on a confirmation "prompt" - otherwise your signature will not register on the petition!!! Thank you!

                                         ______________________________

PLEASE MAKE A DONATION, ANY AMOUNT NO MATTER HOW SMALL HELPS!!!!

Please help to free these four innocent men who have languished in federal prisons for 16 years! We are the people!
 
The judicial system is very broken. It must be fixed.
There are four people who can do the job:
Everybody, Somebody, Anybody, and Nobody.
Everybody thinks Somebody will surely do it.
It is a job Anybody can do. But Nobody is doing it.
At least I'm trying. What are you doing?

 
PLEASE DONATE IF YOU CAN!!! WE NEED MONEY FOR A LAWER:The Yankton Four | The National Center for Reason and Justicencrj.org