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(speaking foreign language)

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(native music)

(drumming and chanting)

- [Voiceover] In 1991 a man name Douglas White

was sentenced to 292 months in jail

for a crime some say he didn't commit.

- It's time for the federal government to stand up

and say all right, we made a mistake.

(native music)

(singing foreign language)

(native music)

- So we got to a house and in the house were a bunch

of people, and they invited me like I belonged there.

I mean there was none of this you're white, we're Indian

keep away and just I was part of the family.

They said we're going to be doing

a special ceremony for this friend of Doug White.

(drumming and chanting)

We all sat in a circle, and then the singer-drummer came on.

And it was like magic, he had this huge drum.

(laughing)

And he would (imitating drumming) and then he would sing.

And this was enchanting.

It was just totally enchanting.

And then Doug appeared, and then what happened was amazing.

He said there's going to be some

strange things happening in the room.

(drumming and chanting)

- The word (speaking foreign language) means they bind.

So people will come and they'll wrap the medicine men

in a blanket and then very tightly bind him with cords

so that he is not able to move

and the only way that he is going to be able

to be released is by the power of the spirits.

(chanting)

- When he goes into that sacredness, he gives his life up.

Once they get wrapped up, their into that alter,

they're into another dimension that

we'll never be able to understand.

(drumming) (chanting)

- We sing a certain song and there

was a light coming from the ceiling.

And it hit the alter.

A little trickle like a lightening coming down.

There was a sound that came out from nowhere.

Amazing, I've never seen such Holy Man can do that.

Lightening just come through and hit the wall,

like a flashlight explosions.

That's how powerful this man is, you know.

- Lights start popping like this.

(clicking tongue) (snapping fingers)

Like fireflies, green glowing lights just popping.

Then suddenly he said the spirits are here.

(dramatic music) (rattle shaking)

(native music)

- [Voiceover] Douglas White is the oldest Medicine Man

from Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.

(native music)

Pine Ridge is home to the Lakota people,

also known as the great Sioux Nation.

(chanting and drumming) (native music)

(relaxing music)

- The Lakota religion comes to make us

have that broad perspective to realize

hey we are all from grandmother earth.

And that she provides all the things that we need

and all the animals and all the birds

really are our relatives and we are meant to be here

living in a peaceful and a harmonious way.

(relaxing music)

- To us everything natural is part of us

and we're part of those things that are natural.

(relaxing music)

We communicated with everything around us.

With the grass or the insect, the deer,

with the buffalo, and with the thunder clouds.

Everything around us is real and it's

sacred and it's spiritual.

(relaxing music)

(relaxing music) (wind howling)

- Everything that is sacred is round.

The Sun is round, the clouds are round,

the rain drops are round.

The earth is round, the trees are round,

you and I are round.

Everything that is sacred and holy is round.

The circle of life.

(drumming) (chanting)

- Every people has a hoop.

These medicine men are in the center of that.

They know the teachings, they know the old ways

to call the spirit world so that the spirit

world can look at the people.

They are the people who do that.

- They're interpreters and they interpret

from the spirit world to this physical world.

(drumming) (chanting)

- They role of the Medicine Man is to pray

and to be in contact with the spirits.

A Medicine Man is a very humble man because they realize

that they don't have any power of their own.

They are totally dependent upon

the blessings of the spirits.

So you'll find them to be very quiet, very humble,

and very prayerful men, they must be in order

to maintain those personal contact

with the spirits of this world.

(relaxing music)

- [Voiceover] Douglas was born in 1921 and baptized

in the Roman Catholic church, where he served

as an alter boy during his youth.

In 1941, he received the spiritual calling

that would lead him to become a Medicine Man.

In 1967, Douglas married Evelyn Poor Thunder

and became step father to her children and grandchildren.

As a well respected and loved Holy Man,

Douglas helped thousands of people of all races

throughout the United States and Canada.

(dramatic music)

In 1991, Douglas was accused of molesting his two grandsons.

The allegations were reported by his

daughter-in-law, Geraldine Little Boy.

(camera shuttering)

- My ex-mother in law, she came over to see me

and she told me that her husband Douglas White,

he went and molested my two sons.

Lloyd and

Roy Jr.

- And this incident occurred, it visibly shook up Doug

because of the accusations and it troubled him very deeply.

Those are his (speaking foreign language),

those were his grandchildren and to accuse

him of these things was something beyond him.

When Mr. White and I did my initial interview

and got into what motivated the alleged victims

to proceed with this, I went out and did

my own investigations in the community

and found out that Evelyn had him incarcerated

a number of times and

all of them were just she accused him of being drunk.

They never gave him a toxilizer or anything in those days.

They just went and picked him up and brought him in.

(dramatic music)

- I put him in jail.

I got mad, when I get mad I go like that.

Mm-hmm, he knows and Doug knows,

I whip him lot of times when he's drinking.

(dramatic music)

- M why first suspicion then, was that he was

stringed and she wanted to put a tighter leash on him.

I think what happened then was it got out of control.

- So I went to the social services and reported it

and this guy came over to see me.

- When a major crime is committed on a reservation,

the BIA police come out, they're the first responders.

They pass what ever they find up to the FBI,

which takes a look at it or ignores it,

depending upon what they want to do.

They decide whether there's enough there

to pass on the federal prosecutor.

- [Voiceover] According to the FBI, in August 1991

the US Attorney's office declined to prosecute this case.

- Usually they go to federal court first.

If the US Attorney declines, it comes back to tribal court.

We took the complaint at face value.

We arrested Mr. White and arraigned

him and he said not guilty.

(dramatic music)

- There were no physical findings that

would have suggested sexual abuse.

You would have thought there'd be at least

some scarring or something visible.

Concrete, and there wasn't.

- We opened a hearing, they brought in his grandchildren.

To say his grandchildren were ecstatic to see him

would be underplaying it.

After they denied this type of stuff happened,

then they didn't want to talk anymore.

To them that was it, they had

nothing to say about their grandpa.

- I had no witnesses.

All I had was the boys statement.

So we called him, we swore him in

and he denied that the abuse happened.

(dramatic music)

- It was something that was done out of haste

and jealousy as it were that got out of hand from her.

I don't think she appreciated the gravity of the situation

as to hey, somebody's out there waiting to pick this

ball up and run with it.

- [Voiceover] Several years earlier,

Geraldine lost custody of her son Lloyd Helper

to Douglas and his wife Evelyn.

- She was keeping my son Lloyd.

I tried to get him back, I went for hearings with her.

And they still wouldn't give him back to me.

- She wasn't taking care of the kids.

It was always Evelyn and Doug that had em.

- My mom used to drink a lot, heavily.

We had no food, you know, no water.

No heat, no electricity, no lights.

- Geraldine she was always getting their ADC money

and not spend it on the kids.

She would be on a drunk in White Clay.

- I had no doubts

that

I was just a body with a spirit without a mind.

(dramatic music)

And that time nobody could find me.

I was

lost.

- I know it was probably hard growing up in that atmosphere.

The drinking, whatever went on in their house you know.

(chanting)

(dramatic music)

- [Voiceover] Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

is located in the poorest county in the United States.

(dramatic music)

- We're the poorest county in America by design.

And the entire colonial setup of the reservation

concentration camp system

is designed for failure.

That's what colonialism is all about.

To ensure failure, to ensure poverty.

To ensure disease, to ensure hopelessness.

- Well there's like 85% unemployment.

We have a very high alcoholism rate.

There's a severe housing shortage.

You know sometimes we have five

and six families living in one house.

There are people that live without running water

you know and they don't have electricity

because there isn't the income to pay the bills.

So hard choices are made, in order to survive here.

I think the average median income

is like $3500 for the year for 85% of our people.

(dramatic music)

- Suicide rate is upon it's highest of any

nationality in the United States.

The teen suicide happening today is really

astounding because there's nothing here for our youth.

There's really nothing here.

(dramatic music)

As we're speaking today, someone is thinking of suicide.

Someone attempted suicide or there was a suicide out there.

That has a real effect on Pine Ridge amongst my people here.

The Lakota people.

(chanting)

- Our people were known as spiritual people.

But it wasn't until the last hundred years that our people

had to put up with prison and war, genocide.

(dramatic music)

Once our people were free,

(dramatic music)

they followed the buffalo, they lived in harmony

with the earth and they're very connected

as (speaking foreign language), it means we are all related.

(dramatic music)

- For centuries you know we lived free

and we lived as one people with mother earth and nature.

Until the Europeans came and they started

the government of the United States.

They tried to come through our land

and the Black Hills and take our gold and our minerals.

When they couldn't defeat us, they come up with treaties.

(dramatic music)

- [Voiceover] In 1868, the United States government

signed the Fort Laramie treaty affirming that

the western half of what is now called South Dakota

belonged to the Lakota people.

In 18977, the United States government

broke this treaty and illegally confiscated

the Black Hills after gold was found there.

The Black Hills are the spiritual

center for the Lakota people.

At the same time, over 40 million buffalo

for food, clothing, and shelter stable of the Lakota people

were brought to near extinction for their hides and tongues.

By the turn of the century, less than

a few hundred buffalo remained.

(solemn music)

Cut off from their ancestral homeland,

the Lakota people were forced onto reservations

where they became economically dependent

on the United States government.

(solemn music)

Indian children were forced to attend

government boarding schools.

Their hair was cut off and they were forbidden

to speak their native language or practice

their traditional culture.

(solemn music)

Indian religion was outlawed and condemned as devil worship.

Up until the Freedom of Indian Religion Act in 1978,

it was illegal for American Indians

to practice their traditional religion.

- We know what happened in history.

If I sat here and think about it,

I'm going to get angry and I'm going to kill somebody.

If I think of all the injustices that are done, you know.

But we don't think that way.

Because of that simple statement, all my relatives.

If anything we want to have peace.

We want to get along with everybody.

- [Voiceover] Despite present day conditions,

the Lakota people maintain a strong and proud

connection to their culture, their religion, and their land.

- Although they put us on reservations,

we've maintained a lifestyle here regardless,

through our spirituality and through our culture.

That's what kept us going and it's going

to continue to keep us going.

(chanting) (drumming)

- There is one thing about the reservation.

There is one thing about our way of life

that still holds for a lot of us.

Douglas White, if you know him, you know about

this humble beauty that we still possess.

We're fast losing, but we still possess that.

- Uncle Douglas, he knew the songs

and the rituals and so we went from him for help

spiritually, mentally, emotionally.

And he also done (speaking foreign language)

which is a serious ceremony where you actually

can cure cancer or rid all drastic diseases.

- Well to his altar, cancer patients were cured.

HIV persons were cured and that's hard to believe

but these kind of miracles take

place by being present at the alter.

That's the kind of person he is.

He has that power to turn water into medicine.

- When I first found out I had Bells Palsy,

I woke up one morning and felt really bad.

I really don't know how Douglas found out

I had this, he took me to the ceremony.

He prayed for me and the very next morning it was gone.

It was gone.

(solemn music)

- One year after being found not guilty in tribal court,

Douglas was indicted for the very same crime

by the federal government.

(solemn music)

- If the US Attorney was not satisfied with what transpired

in the tribal court, he could

open the case in federal court.

- Often times our office can be in a better position

to prosecute some times these serious cases,

and maybe somebody made a determination

that we could be helpful.

- To my mind, that is a large step

to second guess tribal court.

We adjudicated a case, we resolved it, it was over.

(solemn music)

- Of course they say well there's no double jeopardy.

That does not exist, but how many times you're going to try

a person, til finally you get what you want you know.

- [Voiceover] Neither the FBI, nor the US Attorney's

office will explain why Douglas White's case was reopened.

A full year after they declined to prosecute it.

- The federal government they have their own prosecution

goals, they have their own priorities.

I mean let me tell you, the federal judiciary

in all of it's attachments make no bones about it,

is in the back of Indian people.

(dramatic music)

- Things go through the court system here,

they find them not guilty the charges dismissed

but the feds will come

and the outsiders will come in, take it on and.

- Before a case is indicted and long

before there is a trial, there's a great deal of work

that goes into investigating the case

and the allegations and in trying to determine

how to proceed with an investigation,

I suppose it's not generally known how much we do that.

I don't know that I'm prepared to talk about

how we do that, but we do.

- If you're an Indian person that commits any crime

on Pine Ridge reservation, you immediately get

a 100 mile change of venue to a fed court in Rapid City.

Which would be a very far and alien system to people

from the reservation to be prosecuted by people

who really understand very little about what

goes in within your community.

(upbeat music)

- [Voiceover] Douglas was tried by an all

white jury 100 miles from home in

a foreign language with no translator.

(dramatic music)

(ball bouncing)

(dramatic music)

The government alleged that on July 19, 1991

Douglas returned to his Pine Ridge home, went down

to the basement and molested his two grandsons

while babysitter Penny Keoke was upstairs.

(solemn music)

- What I did is I stayed and took

care of Evelyn's grandchildren while they were

at Bear Butte and during that period of time,

the kids were getting pretty difficult to handle.

And so it was within a few days, Douglas came back.

He was at the house a very, very brief amount of time.

Very, very short.

I would say 10 or 15 minutes probably at the very most.

He was in a hurry, he needed to go back to Bear Butte.

- There's certainly a compounding of

improbabilities in this case.

In that first of all that a 72 year old man

is able to restrain two struggling, yelling

children while everybody's standing

straight up and perform an act of abuse.

In addition to the improbability that he is going to select

this moment in time, where's he going to get

the most resistance, to perform an illegal act

in a manner that is most likely to get him caught.

It just didn't compute.

- Well I was thinking, you know I was the person there

why aren't people checking with me.

I mean you can't just make something up

and say hey this is what was happening.

I was the person that was at the house, you know

this isn't a great big mansion, this

is a small little house when Douglas came.

That makes two adults and two children.

If something would have been going on,

I would have felt it, I would have known that.

Nothing did go on.

(solemn music)

- Mr. White is not in jail because our office

said that he's guilty, he must go to jail.

The reason he's in jail of course, is because

12 people determined beyond a reasonable

doubt the evidence indicated he'd

done what the indictment alleged.

- Yeah I had doubt.

I think more than anything it's probably

the consistency of the kids.

Today I still got doubt.

I don't know if I did right or not.

- There is something about how Douglas

was able to hold two children and commit this act.

Some of that seems unrealistic and I realized

there were discrepancies at one point.

The children said it happened outside

another point they said it happened inside.

That's pretty big discrepancy in a way.

- Reduced to it's essence, this case

is about the credibility of the two alleged victims,

which is Roy and Lloyd.

Now, certainly in trials, certainly in child

abuse trials, you are going to give children allowance.

They're going to be nervous, they're not

going to want to talk about this.

This is understood, this is normal.

What happens in this case that is so troubling

is that there's not one detail in the case

and in these children's testimonies that's

corroborated, even between themselves.

- Even when they're talking about events,

you can have em say it three times,

and they'll say it three different ways.

And I couldn't follow it.

- Some of the things were contradictory but,

and the way they explained the way it happened,

that the Grandpa held them both at the same time.

I mean that isn't, that probably didn't happen.

- They're both standing up and that he,

you know they didn't say they were on a bed or anything

the kids are short and he's taller,

it's not gonna work. (laughing)

So that's one thing that was a doubt,

that made me thing that it probably didn't happen.

- I mean it's so hard to make a decision on just

what we were shown, I mean there basically was no evidence.

(dramatic music)

- What struck me in reading the transcript in this case

was the very concise and favorable formulation

of reasonable doubt that was given to the jury and their

instructions, which was simply, the type of doubt

that would cause you to hesitate in your actions.

When you judge this case by that standard,

there was reasonable doubt all over the place in this case.

- Aww you know where's his lawyer?

Did they even save that he was impotent?

- [Voiceover] Medical tests that would

have exonerated Douglas were never performed.

Douglas could not afford a lawyer,

so he was assigned a court appointed public defender.

- A federal court system is pretty scary, and most people,

the court appointed doesn't spend time with them,

telling them even what they're dealing with.

You know it's a get this over with because it's

court appointed, I'm not earning any money.

- You have people who couldn't

other wise afford a lawyer at all getting very good

lawyers appointed to help them out.

Now often times those lawyers serve that at a rate

that is very modest compared to their regular hourly rate.

- So you're stuck with someone who's only

giving you 40% instead of a 100%.

- And the Indian, having no other opportunity to find

a lawyer, has to either go with what his lawyer says

or try to represent him or her self in court.

What kind of choice is that?

- When Douglas was going to court, he don't hardly

understand English language and the court

appointed a lawyer to explain some of the things to him

about the justice system and what kind of laws.

He had no idea, he don't understand it.

Because English is our second language, you know.

Lakota is out first language and that's what we speak.

- I haven't seen any indication I guess

in my review of the trial or the appellate opinion

that lends support to the idea that

the absence of an interpreter was problematic in this case.

(solemn music)

- To me frankly that would be laughable.

I did have a lot of discussions with Doug

and I never felt there was a communication gap.

- I don't know who came up with that one

but that's now worth. (laughing)

(dramatic music)

- As I understand the constitution and the

right and the Bill of Rights, and the sixth amendment

to have a jury trial from a cross section of your community,

that doesn't necessarily carry with it,

the ability to have or the right to have

a particular racial component, religious component,

gender component, or anything else.

- You know you just as well through your hands up

when you walk in to see, and that's not demeaning

in any sense but especially up here in South Dakota

prejudice and discrimination is alive and well and exist.

So for me to go up against an all white jury,

I just throw up my hands and say hay let's cut

a deal some place, I'm not gonna get justice here.

And that's the truth, it is the truth.

- The writing was on the wall before Douglas White

entered the court room, before I testified,

I was the only other person in that house.

(solemn music)

Yep.

So when you see an Indian person go into an all white

court room like that, you know what the answer is.

You don't even have to have a jury.

You already know what the answer is.

(solemn music)

Yep.

(solemn music)

- You know in all honesty, I don't see where race

would have played a role in this case.

I have confidence that whatever tensions might exist

between whites and Indians in South Dakota, that a federal

jury is not going to send a man like Doug White away

over some petty racial issue they might have.

I don't think that race was the trump card in this case.

- I really can't remember what he looked like at all.

I always wonder how do these people become medicine men.

What do they have to do, do they just one day say

I'm going to be a medicine man and what's their motivation.

After hearing this case you really wonder.

Is there any governing body that takes care of these people?

I don't think so, I don't know.

I'm not that up on the Indian culture

so I don't really know.

- I think a lot of things are maybe given to them

and they don't, maybe they don't take care

of them as well as if they had earned it

or worked for it or something.

You know you drive through there and you see

house after house that the windows are open

and the curtains are flying out in the breeze.

And you know there's not a lot of pride.

- I wonder if maybe some people

become medicine man because of they're close

contact with children and other people

because of, it has a protection for their

you know devices or whatever.

I just wonder.

- We have friends who come from out of state

and they stop in at these tourist information places.

They scare the hell out of them

from coming to the reservation.

Say you have to leave there before sunset

(laughing) you know, things like that you know.

- So you see, the unholy racism against

the American Indian comes from the fact that whenever

anyone looks at us, in the Americas they feel guilty.

(solemn music)

- [Voiceover] The jury was never told that the same

case had been tried and dismissed in Tribal Court.

- Well I think that was kept from us, and I think some

of us would have been more sympathetic to

the dismissal of the case had we known that.

The defense of course wanted that to be brought in.

But they couldn't bring it in because

it was forbidden by the judge at the time.

- I mean to me the judge and the attorneys,

they knew a lot more than we did.

I think they knew how the outcome should be.

I mean I don't know.

(dramatic music)

- My testimony as it were was very harnessed.

Why wasn't I given the opportunity

to tell them exactly what happened and what transpired.

At that point I lost faith in a system that I believed in.

(dramatic music)

- The evidence that he needed in came in

and he suffered no adverse rulings from the court.

There was no funny business by the prosecution,

no arguments that shouldn't have been made

or no evidence snuck in.

From the point of view of a very clean fair trial,

Doug got his day in court.

(solemn music)

(chanting)

- There was times I'd have to get up at 4:00

in the morning and do chores, and get in

there and just barely get in time to sit down in the jury

and then try and stay awake (laughing) so.

- I'm sure that everybody was just,

you know we don't wanna hear about this anymore,

we don't want to think about this.

Let's just make a decision and get out of here.

(solemn music)

(chanting)

(gavel pounding)

(solemn music) (chanting)

- [Voiceover] On January 21, 1993, 72 year old

Douglas White was convicted on both counts

of sexual abuse of a minor.

He was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison.

With no hope of parole.

(solemn music)

(solemn music) (chanting)

- Don't think that what happened to Douglas White

is not going to happen to you.

You see what happens to the Indian

eventually happens to the American.

And they don't even know it.

The colonization practiced and perfected on us,

has been exported to the world,

including the American people.

You're all about the Patriotic Act now,

welcome to the club.

Welcome to the reservation by the way.

All of you, welcome to the reservation.

(singing foreign language)

- [Voiceover] In 1973 the American Indian movement

occupied the village of Wounded Knee to protest living

conditions on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

Pine Ridge is the same reservation

where a shoot out between the American

Indian Movement and two FBI agents,

led to the arrest and conviction of AIM leader

Leonard Peltier.

- At that time we must understand that the FBI

had a political agenda that was really

after any little thing that members

of the Oglala Sioux tribe did.

- Something had to be done.

We were about to be written off as

road kill cultures of manifest destiny.

America was gonna move down the road of progress

and didn't care about Indian people.

If we got in the way, you were just run over.

And many were.

(solemn music)

- [Voiceover] In the 1970s, the civil rights group

The American Indian Movement led a nationwide

movement for American Indians to reclaim

their traditional heritage, their religion,

and their treaty based land rights.

(drumming) (chanting)

- I remember in the 70s, we were

all colonized on this reservation.

It was just a small pocket of people

who kept the language ceremonies,

the rituals alive and Uncle Douglas

was one of those people.

He stood up and he had ceremonies in front of his colonized

peers and spoke of Nationhood and Statesmanship

and we were always so proud of him.

- Back in the 70s and most of the time

that AIM came and the elders like

Douglas White and Fools Crow and they

said we need to stand up and honor our tradition.

(speaking foreign language)

(drumming and chanting)

- The American Indian Movement northern groups

were savvy enough to look toward these

powerful charismatic medicine men to be part of their

movement and to give people more than

just a political cause but a spiritual cause.

And this was terrifying to the federal government.

- I mean they had just seen Martin Luther King

Unite a nation to call for change.

They were afraid of the same thing

happening in Indian Country via these medicine men.

(solemn music)

- Through it all, the government, the FBI created

a group called COINTELPRO, Counter Intelligence Program,

COINTELPRO, they created that to neutralize

the black movement, the Black Panthers

and to neutralize the Brown Berets, the Chicanos.

And they used the same tactics to go after AIM.

- The government in it's own documents

talks about using the criminal justice system

to tie people up, to drain resources,

to do all kinds of things that they hoped

would destroy the American Indian Movement.

- [Voiceover] The American Indian Movement

occupied a small portion of the Black Hills.

They called it Yellow Thunder Camp.

For two years Douglas White led

the Sun Dance ceremony at Yellow Thunder.

- He was an elder when I knew him

and he ran the Sun Dance at Yellow Thunder Camp

in our sacred holy land, the Black Hills.

Black Hills of what is now called South Dakota.

(chanting)

- A group of people called themselves

the Dakota American Indian Movement

took over a very infinitesimal fraction

of the Black Hills in a very remote area

in an effort to have a place of worship

without interference or hindrance.

(chanting) (drumming)

- Those federal lands in the Black

Hills can be returned to us.

In our system and according to the treaty

written by your government state that it is ours.

- I'm curious to know what kind of a society

then would you establish in that nation?

- Well an individual would have rights and the 25,000

years experience that we've had in a perfect

form of government spiritually based, would be reinstituted.

(solemn music)

- Camp Yellow Thunder was part of an

attempt to reclaim the land.

(relaxing music)

(relaxing music) (water trickling)

The little coaches have always claimed that

they never signed away their rights to the Black Hills

and they are in fact right.

Our US Supreme Court has held that they have

a right to the Black Hills, however instead

of saying that they were swindled of this land,

it was robbed from them illegally therefore

we should give them back control of the land.

The Indians had to take a price of what

the land was worth back then with interest factored in.

But not all the stuff that's been extracted from it.

(upbeat music)

So I believe currently it's almost a billion dollars

that's sitting in an escrow account.

For every Lakota that would come to about one used car

and they have refused it steadfastly.

They know the value of that land,

both spiritually and economically.

And have refused, this is the poorest of our nation's poor

have said no, we don't want that billion dollars.

We want the land.

(singing foreign language)

- Crazy Horse, we hear what you say.

One earth, one mother.

One does not sell the earth the people walk upon.

We are the land, how do we sell our mother?

How do we sell the stars?

How do we sell the air?

Crazy Horse, we hear what you say.

- Within any people's sense of probably since

at least Columbus arrived, it's always been

about land and resources and the indigenous

population has always been in the way.

If you're going to eliminate people's spiritual connection

to the land, one of the ways that you can do that

is by eliminating their spiritual leaders.

- [Voiceover] In 1975, the federal government

sentenced Lakota medicine man Leonard Crow Dog

the spiritual leader of the American Indian Movement

to 21 years in federal prison.

He was charged with interfering with the work

of a federal postal inspector.

(speaking foreign language)

- A lot of people don't understand the functions

of the federal government, the cohort functions.

But in order for them to maintain control over tribes,

they have to keep us in a state of turmoil.

And in other for them to do that,

they're going to have to pick prominent spiritual leaders,

political activists, and to remove them

or cripple them somewhat so that we lose

the sense of leadership and direction.

And with that accomplishment, then

we're not going to stand up and demand to be independent.

(singing foreign language)

- [Voiceover] On September 5, 1877, Lakota spiritual

leader Crazy Horse was murdered at Fort Robinson, Nebraska.

(solemn music)

He was brought there under false pretenses

and was about to be arrested and sent to prison.

(solemn music)

(singing foreign language)

On December 15, 1890, Lakota spiritual leader

Sitting Bull was assassinated by the newly formed

Indian Police at Fort Yates, North Dakota.

(dramatic music)

Two weeks later, on December 29, 1890

the US Seventh Calvary massacred over 300

unarmed Lakota men, women, and children.

(dramatic music)

The victims were buried in a mass grave at Wounded Knee.

(solemn music)

Among the dead were Lakota spiritual leaders

Chief Big Foot and Medicine Man Yellow Bird.

(solemn music)

- All of our great leaders in the past from Crazy Horse

to Sitting Bull have been systematically annihilated

and eliminated from our culture, like Mr. White.

(singing foreign language)

- [Voiceover] Despite his incarceration,

Douglas White continues to serve

his fellow inmates in prison.

(relaxing music)

- Once Grandpa White came into the population,

the guards and the administrators saw how

men, especially the young men,

who were filled with anger and hatred and resentment

how they changed and would listen to him.

- He helped everybody in there.

I mean there's black guys, there Spanish guys,

the white guys, people from different tribes he helped.

Even the guards, some guards he even helped too.

- [Voiceover] Always had a smile on his face.

I mean he just talked to everybody.

I mean from all walks of life.

- He helped other people, he helped all the minority

people that are in there plus other people too.

That's all colors, he would help out

everybody and anybody.

It's just that, that's the way he is.

That's his job as a medicine man and as an ordinary man.

- I think if it wasn't for the old man

and all the wisdom that he gave me,

the commitment that I made to his alter,

I think I would be lost.

(solemn music)

- Grandfather White is one of the last living

true medicine men in the world today.

And when he's gone, this may be lost.

(relaxing music)

(speaking foreign language) (relaxing music)

- I think it's always been done that they take the

leaders away, I mean look at the whole thing

with Crazy Horse and they turned our own people

on our own people and that's historic.

And it's very artful to turn Indian people against

Indian people but it happens and our

biggest disappointments are from there you know.

- I do remember a lot of pressure from the lawyers,

the judges, people wanting to get involved, angry people.

Just little boys having to face such a very

big huge thing that has to involve courts,

people with suits, you don't know what gonna happen.

And it's scary, you just want to tell them

to get lost and you wanna run.

(solemn music)

- After the trial and everything, I asked

one of the boys and he said, well our mom

told us we're gonna get a lot of money.

- They were told by their mom that he was gonna

receive a horse and a lot of toys.

Which wasn't true you know.

- You know I just remember my mom saying something

about you're gonna get some money

or you're gonna get a check.

- They were children,

they were coached and the government

used these kids of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome

to convict an innocent man.

(solemn music)

- Lloyd, he had real problems after that and I knew he

really regretted he had to tell lies about him.

Just one time he told me that his grandfather

never did those things, he just,

he was told to say those things.

(solemn music)

- Nothing happened, that's what Lloydy said.

- I just want to ask Lloyd and Roy Jr

about what happened that time if they remembered

and Roy Jr. said he didn't want to talk about it.

And Lloyd, Lloyd said it wasn't true.

- There's a lot of physical pressure,

there was a lot of negativity, there was a lot of lies.

There was a lot of talks, so I got all

confused and distracted and I didn't know

what was going on so I just followed

along what they told me to do.

(solemn music)

- [Voiceover] In 2007, Douglas White was

diagnosed with a terminal illness.

Immediately following his diagnoses,

Mr. White petitioned the Federal Bureau of Prisons

for a compassionate release.

His request was denied.

- If you're a medicine man,

your spirits cannot help you personally.

It's for the people but it's not for your personal benefit.

(solemn music)

It's a hard calling, very hard.

(solemn music)

- Uncle Douglas doesn't own nothing,

he gives everything away, he'll die with nothing

because that was his destiny.

He's a holy man.

- He's needed because of healing.

The people need healing and you take that medicine

man out, then the people go on in a kind of crippled way.

Their spirituality is crippled.

- Oh we need him.

We need him before it's too late.

We gotta have him back.

And I hope the person that put him there,

I hope he or she is happy.

I'm sure he's praying for that person too.

- Right now, you ask Douglas White

and he has pity for those who incarcerate him.

- You can incarcerate the body but you

cannot incarcerate the mind and the heart of the individual.

(dramatic music)

- They said that everybody turns out to be liked.

They're going to turn around let him out

and they're gonna get all the people who were

involved and do the same thing to them.

That's why I think a lot of people kept quiet about things.

- I was so young at the time,

I thought Douglas was going to prison for a long time.

(solemn music)

- Man we were just little kids.

Little dumb stupid Indian kids, little dirty Indian kids.

Being tossed around, your own family

has something to say, and other people.

You're like in the limelight, the center of attention.

You're just basically a dumb little Indian kid.

You don't know what's going on.

You don't know who's going to jail.

You don't even know what's going on.

- I wasn't there at the time

they told him to lie about Douglas

but I knew it was coming from my mother.

My mom told him to say all that.

So he did it.

(dramatic music)

(dramatic music)

- [Voiceover] As a result of Roy Jr's confession,

attorney Terry Pechota agreed to

take on Douglas' case pro bono.

This was the first time Douglas had

had a lawyer in 14 years.

(dramatic music)

- I initially got involved in the case

at the request of Simon Ice.

He showed me the material that he had

and I changed my original opinion

about the likelihood of prevailing on this case.

- Filmmakers from California

are trying to take the case of an imprisoned

Pine Ridge Medicine Man.

- In 1991, a man name Douglas White

was sentenced to 292 months in jail

for a crime some say he didn't commit.

- The filmmakers were in Rapid City today

and they say the evidence now shows

that White did not commit the crime.

(dramatic music)

- [Voiceover] Roy and Lloyd Helper,

both underwent extensive psychological testing

to determine the truthfulness of their statements.

(dramatic music)

- We have a session that read about two hours

and 20 or 30 minutes.

And when the data was finally all analyzed,

I found that Mr. Helper was undeniably telling the truth

when he answered those questions.

And that this incident never occurred.

- [Voiceover] After learning about this new evidence

several members of the original federal jury

recanted their guilty verdicts.

- If I were given another chance at this as a juror,

I would just vote not guilty.

I just would have to.

(dramatic music)

- [Voiceover] Douglas then petitioned

the Eight Circuit Court of Appeals to reopen his case.

The court approved the petition and ruled in his favor.

- You're optimistic?

- I am optimistic, I'm very optimistic that

justice in this case will prevail.

(dramatic music)

- [Voiceover] The case was then sent

to federal magistrate Veronica Duffy.

Judge Duffy also ruled in Douglas' favor

and recommended an immediate hearing.

(dramatic music)

In response of these favorable rulings,

the US Attorney's objected to White's

request for a new trial, claiming that Douglas

knew about Roy Jr's confession five years

before it actually occurred.

- The government does not want a hearing in this case.

They do not want to get to the merits of this.

- [Voiceover] Despite being provided

with evidence that the prosecutions claims were false,

Judge Battey, the same judge who sentenced

Douglas to 25 years in prison, ruled against Douglas.

Denying him a new trial.

- Judge Battey is real racist.

- No matter what you say, talk to you blue in the face

his mind is already made up.

He's really a hardcore anti-Indian judge.

- When they went before Judge Battey

with all the evidence and the success

in Eighth Circuit court and Judge Duffy,

they ran into a brick wall, mainly because

nobody, nobody wants to admit they were wrong.

- [Voiceover] Immediately following Judge Battey's

denial, the case was sent back to

the Eighth Circuit Court of appeals and a petition

was filed for Douglas' immediate release.

(drumming) (chanting)

- [Voiceover] This is First Voices Indigenous Radio.

I'm your host Tiokasin Ghost Horse.

On November 2nd, there was a demonstration in Pine Ridge.

They marched through the streets.

(drumming) (chanting)

How long is that process gonna go on.

It is just hoping this whole madness

goes away someday really soon,

so that the legal system doesn't have to bother with it.

- It's time for the federal government to stand up

and say alright, we made a mistake.

- We think that in this case, the truth finding function

was undertaken a long time ago.

And we're not particularly of a mind

to retry this case.

- [Voiceover] This is a sham, this is a sham

on the United States government.

This is something we don't hear because it's out there.

It's out way in the remote part of the country

and we don't want to hear about

what this country is doing to Native people.

- You know you would think that the courts

would take it upon themselves to say listen,

if the man is actually innocent, we're gonna hear the case.

That's what we're here for, that's what we get paid for.

(solemn music)

- I guess all I have to say is

that Doug was right, he's innocent.

And I hope that he finds it in his heart to be forgiving

and not to be hating us, mad at us.

(solemn music)

- Here's the case of Douglas White,

who is accused of something that

they just railroaded him with

and that kind of thing happens all the time.

- We wonder how do those judges sleep at night.

How does that jury sleep at night.

But we pray, the Lakota people we pray for them

because they're thinking is not right.

- Mr. White's case is only the tip of the iceberg.

There's many, many more that needs to be uncovered

and for the Eric Holders and the President Obamas

and all the other people in the high places,

to really take a good look and really understand

the oppression that we are in.

- And so we pray for them, that one day

that somehow, some way that they will be touched

and their minds will be opened.

And then we'll share his story and that will open

the eyes of the US Attorneys, the Federal Judges,

the Federal Judicial System, and what's going on

in Indian country.

(solemn music)

(speaking foreign language)

(solemn music)

(speaking foreign language)

(solemn music)

(singing foreign language)

(solemn music)

(singing foreign language)

(relaxing music)