SIOUX FALLS, S.D.—The defense lawyer for a Canadian man accused of killing a fellow American Indian Movement member 32 years ago wants to delay the trial three months.
John Graham pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder for the slaying of Anna Mae Pictou Aquash around Dec. 12, 1975, on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.
His federal trial is scheduled to start June 17 in Rapid City. But Graham’s lawyer, John Murphy of Rapid City, has asked the judge to waive his client’s right to a speedy trial and reschedule it for Sept. 15.
The defense has been provided 112 audio tapes containing an unknown number of hours of witness interviews; it has received 4,263 documents, excluding transcripts; and the defense has spent more than 40 hours with Graham but has reviewed just the first 600 pages of those documents with him, Murphy wrote.
“More time will be needed to review and sort through the voluminous discovery in this case in order to adequately prepare for trial,” he wrote.
Federal prosecutors have not yet responded to the motion. Nor has the judge ruled on the request.
The other man charged with killing Aquash, Fritz Arlo Looking Cloud of Denver, was convicted of killing Aquash in 2004 and sentenced to a mandatory life prison term.
At his trial, witnesses said that he, Graham and another AIM member, Theda Clark, drove Aquash from Denver and that Graham shot Aquash in the Badlands near Wanblee as she begged for her life.
Clark has not been charged. She lives in a nursing home in western Nebraska and has refused to talk about the case.
Graham, a Yukon native also known as John Boy Patton, denies killing Aquash, though he acknowledged being in the car with her from Denver. He was extradited from Vancouver, British Columbia, in December.
A federal appeals court upheld the conviction against Looking Cloud, who is in a Louisiana prison.
His request for a new lawyer has been granted. John Schlimgen will replace Mike Butler, according to a court order. Both practice in Sioux Falls.
