LOS ANGELES (AP) - Ralph Nader lost the presidential nomination from the California Peace and Freedom Party on Sunday when its members opted instead to nominate jailed American Indian activist Leonard Peltier.

Nader, who is running for president as an independent candidate, addressed delegates who represent about 80,000 Peace and Freedom Party members as they attended the party's weekend convention in Los Angeles, said party chairman and co-founder Kevin Akin.

"Ralph Nader personally appeared and discussed matters with us for an hour and answered many questions," said Akin, 53, of Riverside. "But we're pretty committed to Peltier and (vice presidential running mate) Janice Jordan."

Peltier is serving a life sentence in a federal prison at Leavenworth, Kan., for the June 1975 slayings of FBI agents Ron Williams and Jack Coler on the Pine Ridge reservation. He was convicted in 1977 of two counts of first-degree murder.

The courts have rejected Peltier's appeals, despite numerous efforts on his behalf from human rights activists who vouch for his innocence. Jordan, a Peace and Freedom Party activist from San Diego, has never met Peltier but has corresponded with him, Akin said.

"We reluctantly admit that Peltier's unlikely to be elected president, but we do believe it's a very important candidacy," Akin said, adding that a jailed person can still run for president.

"He's in prison for a crime he didn't commit," Akin said. "This nomination is a statement on the plight of political prisoners in the U.S. and the need to treat them decently."

In a written statement read to party delegates, Peltier said he had been unjustly imprisoned for 28 years and pledged to correct the U.S. government's "oppressive policies against people of color and those with dissenting opinions."

He also pledged to abolish the death penalty and protect the environment.

Of the 30 Peace and Freedom Party delegates who cast their votes Sunday, 17 voted for Peltier, eight voted for Nader and running mate Peter Camejo, and five voted for Socialist Party members Walt Brown and Mary Ellis Herbert.

Nader was campaigning in California over the weekend to obtain the 153,035 valid signatures needed to put him and Camejo, who ran as the Green Party's candidate for governor in last year's recall election, on the Nov. 2 election ballot.

They have until Aug. 6 to get on California's ballot. Akin said that while his party was backing Peltier for ideological reasons, he's urging voters to sign Nader's petition to be on the ballot.

"We respect him as leader. He should have access to ballots in many states," Akin said.

Lynda Hernandez, the Southern California field coordinator for the Nader campaign, said she didn't have an exact count of petition signatures Sunday but was confident the campaign will get enough signatures by the deadline.