Chanting a sacred Indian song and holding two medicine feathers aloft, David Hill rode a horse around the Roanoke County Courthouse in Salem Tuesday to draw attention to the plight of a fellow Native American.

Hill's message was painted on the side of his horse: Free Aleck Carpitcher.

Carpitcher is serving a 38-year prison sentence based on a single piece of evidence - the testimony of an 11-year-old girl who now says she lied when she told a jury that Carpitcher molested her.

Virginia's 21-day rule, which was the nation's most restrictive time limit on new evidence until it was loosened this year, has barred Carpitcher from raising the girl's recantation in court because it came more than three weeks after his sentencing.

Hill, who is active in the American Indian Movement and knows Carpitcher from growing up in the same small Oklahoma town, decided this week to stage a one-horse protest ride of his friend's conviction while passing through the Roanoke Valley.

With long black hair crested in white, Hill and his horse struck a dramatic pose in downtown Salem, where lunch-hour traffic slowed and people gawked at the sight in a city not known for its protests.

Hill guided his horse, Paint, on a counterclockwise route around the courthouse where Carpitcher was convicted five years ago. In American Indian culture, a clockwise circle enhances the future; counterclockwise undoes the past.

"We want to undo the unjust judicial system that has imprisoned Aleck Carpitcher," said Hill, who was joined by about a half-dozen protesters.

While part of the ride was to denounce the 21-day rule - "There should be no expiration date on truth and justice," Hill said - it also sought to draw attention to the fate of American Indians victimized by the judicial system.

Unable to afford his own lawyer, Carpitcher was forced to rely on a court-appointed attorney who put on a lackluster defense, Hill said. And while Carpitcher's race may not have played a direct role in his conviction, supporters believe it was a factor nonetheless.

"When he was on trial, the jury was looking at this long-haired guy sitting there and thinking 'he's not from here,'" Hill said. "And they're listening to a cute little girl saying that she was molested. That's a recipe for conviction."

Before his conviction, Carpitcher was involved in the American Indian Movement, riding with Hill and others to protest unfair treatment of his race that included criminal prosecutions and commercial development on Indian grave sites.

In a roundabout way, it was that involvement that led Carpitcher to the cell he now occupies at Augusta Correctional Center.

While at one event, he met a woman from Roanoke County. They began to date, and Carpitcher eventually moved in with her.

That upset the woman's daughter, who would later accuse Carpitcher of molesting her repeatedly over a six-month period in 1998. The girl has since said she made up the story because she wanted Carpitcher out of the house.

Even though the jury heard no other evidence to support the allegation, and even though a polygraph test has indicated the girl is now telling the truth, Carpitcher's bids for freedom have been foiled by the 21-day rule.

A habeas corpus petition filed on his behalf could raise only constitutional issues - claiming poor work by his lawyer and rule-breaking by prosecutors - while remaining silent on the issue of actual innocence. A judge denied the petition in 2003.

Since then, the General Assembly has passed a law that would allow Carpitcher to raise the girl's recantation in seeking a new trial. Officials with the Innocence Project, a national network of attorneys who work to free the wrongfully convicted, say they hope to file a claim on Carpitcher's behalf next month.

Roanoke County prosecutors have said they believe Carpitcher's victim testified truthfully and has since been pressured to recant. But because her change of story taints the only witness they have, authorities have said they would not prosecute Carpitcher a second time if he wins a new trial.