United States v. Cooper

397 F. Supp. 277, 1975 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 11817
CourtDistrict Court, D. Nebraska
DecidedJune 19, 1975
DocketCR75-L-7, CR74-L-14 and CR74-L-18
StatusPublished
Cited by16 cases

This text of 397 F. Supp. 277 (United States v. Cooper) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Nebraska primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Cooper, 397 F. Supp. 277, 1975 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 11817 (D. Neb. 1975).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM ON VARIOUS POST-TRIAL MOTIONS

URBOM, Chief Judge.

Six convicted defendants have filed an assortment of posttrial motions and a seventh will be treated as if he had filed them. The defendants Dodge, Johns, Wesaw and Fleury have moved for a judgment of acquittal, for an order directing the government to comply with the defendants’ pretrial request for information as to whether any of the defendants or defense counsel have been the subject of electronic surveillance or whether the government has made use of any informant or undercover operative at the offices or living quarters of the Wounded Knee Legal Defense/Offense Committee in Nebraska or South Dakota, and for an order dismissing the indictment on the ground of government misconduct (CR74-L-14, filing 65). The same defendants have moved for an order directing the government to file affidavits setting forth all relevant facts regarding informants or undercover agents (CR74-L-14, filings 77, 80 and 81). The latter motion has been denied by this court (filing 79) with the observation that the government had agreed to submit affidavits regarding the use of informants. Such affidavits were submitted at the evidentiary hearing of May 31, 1975. They are plaintiff’s exhibits 1 through 8.

The defendants Alvarado and Williams have moved for judgment of acquittal (CR74-L-18, filing 44), arrest of judgment (CR74-L-18, filing 48), to dismiss for prosecutorial misconduct (CR74-L-18, filings 56 and 57), and two motions for further disclosure (CR74 *279 L-18, filings 58 and 63). One motion for further disclosure (CR74-L-18, filing 58) has been denied (filing 62) with the observation that the prosecutors had agreed to furnish affidavits. Such affidavits, plaintiff’s exhibits 1 through 8, have been supplied.

Primarily, the issues raised by these motions—invasion of the attorney-client relationship by use of an informant, electronic surveillance, and prosecutorial misconduct—spring from the surfacing of Federal Bureau of Investigation informants, Douglass F. Durham, Harry Eugene (Gi) Schafer, and Jil Schafer, after the trials and before entry of judgments on the sentences. 1 It was only because of that surfacing that I concluded that an evidentiary hearing should be held.

The defendant Cooper (CR75-L-7), although no written motions have been filed on his behalf, will be considered as having made the same motions as the other defendants and was represented at the evidentiary hearing of May 31 by Elliot Taikeff. Cooper pleaded nolo contendere on May 13, 1974, but no judgment has been entered, partly because of the terms of his plea agreement and partly because of a common goal of positioning all these defendants’ cases for simultaneous appeal on the jurisdictional issue bottomed upon the Treaty of 1868.

As reflected by my order of May 19, 1975 (CR74-L-18, filing 64), I have inspected in camera all Federal Bureau of Investigation informants files which were delivered with the assurance that they were all the informants files relating to Durham and the Schafers. These files were not made a part of the record here but are a part of the record before Judge McManus in United States v. Crow Dog, et al., U.S.D.C.N.D.Iowa, CR75-18, 19 and 20. My inspection caused me to conclude that only Durham, of the several persons requested by the defendants to be subpoenaed relative to the various motions now before the court, needed to be called. Durham’s testimony was taken on May 31, 1975. The Schafers’ involvement ended at such a time as to make any likelihood of invasion of an attorney-client relationship affecting the present defendants virtually impossible.

Nothing that has been presented by affidavit or testimony persuades me that there is basis for broadening the inquiry beyond the informant issue. 2 Were it not for the awareness that one inform *280 ant, Durham, was a regular companion of Dennis Banks while Banks was being tried on Wounded Knee charges in St. Paul, Minnesota, from January through mid-September, 1974, and while the defendants now before the court were being tried in Lincoln, Nebraska, the motions now before the court would not merit evidentiary exploration after trial. Nothing new regarding governmental misconduct, except as use of Durham as an informant may constitute misconduct, or electronic surveillance has been significant enough to merit reopening those matters, they having been resolved before trial in the Consolidated Wounded Knee cases, CR73-5019, U.S.D.C.W.D. S.D. (see CR74-L-18, filing 17, and CR74-L-14, filing 8, adopting previous motions in CR73-5019, and my order in CR74-L-14, filing 19).

The first question is whether I now should require the government to supply additional affidavits and, if not, whether I should permit the defendants to subpoena and offer testimony of government personnel. Resolution of that turns upon the proper standard for granting potential relief of dismissal or new trial because of activities of a government informer.

A group of attorneys and nonattorneys, known as the Wounded Knee Legal Defense/Offense Committee, began at least as early as May, 1973, representing these defendants and many others charged as a result of .the occupation of Wounded Knee, South Dakota, during the period of February to May, 1973. Their personnel has varied from time to time, but has included consistently at least Ramon Roubideaux, Kenneth Til-sen, Joseph Beeler and Mark Lane, and for substantial periods of time Anthony Muller and Roger Finzell, all attorneys. From May, 1973, through the present the Committee’s offices have been located in more than one city and at one time or another have been in St. Paul, Minnesota, Rapid City, South Dakota, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Lincoln, Nebraska, Council Bluffs, Iowa, and Cedar Rapids, Iowa. It functioned with specific trial counsel during the Wounded Knee-related trial in St. Paul, Minnesota, of Russell Means and Dennis Banks from January through mid-September, 1974, during Wounded Knee-related trials in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, during February through May, 1974, during Wounded Knee-related trials in Lincoln, Nebraska, from July, 1974, to January, 1975, and since then in Council Bluffs and Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

Trial of the defendants Fleury, Wesaw, Johns and Dodge took place in Lincoln without a jury from October 1 through October 17, 1974. Alvarado and Williams were tried before a jury in Lincoln from November 18 through November 26, 1974. Jurisdictional issues arising from the Treaty of 1868 were heard in Lincoln from December 16, 1974, through January 2, 1975. Directly serving as trial counsel were Elliot Taikeff, Forrest S. Mosten, Terry Gilbert and Anthony Muller in the October trial, and Norman S. Zalkind, Martin C. Gideonse and Donald Berman in the November trial. Of these only Muller, evidently, had extensive pretrial connection with the Committee. Muller was in Lincoln for seven and a half weeks during and immediately before the October trial in preparation for that trial, during which time documents relating to that and the November trial were' at a barracks located near Lincoln. Defense strategy matters were prepared in part in St. Paul, Minnesota, by Tilsen, and communication between Muller and Til-sen was frequent.

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Bluebook (online)
397 F. Supp. 277, 1975 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 11817, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-cooper-ned-1975.