In Final Moments of Presidency, Biden Commutes Peltier Sentence

WASHINGTON — In one of his last official acts on Monday, President Joe Biden released Leonard Peltier from prison, nearly 50 years after the indigenous activist was convicted of murdering two FBI officers.

For decades, a number of human rights organizations, tribal groups and international religious leaders — not to mention Hollywood celebrities — argued for freedom for the now 80-year-old Peltier, arguing that he was wrongly convicted.

In 2021, their ranks were joined by James Reynolds, a former prosecutor in the case, who said he believed the government did not make its case against Peltier.

However, the FBI and several law enforcement groups repeatedly opposed such a move, maintaining that Peltier was little more than a cold-blooded killer who should remain behind bars.

The pressure for Biden to intervene grew particularly intense after the election. 

First, more that two dozen members of Congress wrote the president, asking him to “rectify the grave injustice” of Peltier’s conviction.

Then, earlier this month, more than 120 former and current tribal leaders signed a letter formally asking for Peltier’s release on the grounds of his failing health, his advanced age and the number of years he’s been imprisoned.

On Monday, Biden commuted Peltier’s life sentence “so that he serves the remainder of his sentence in home confinement.”

“This commutation will enable Mr. Peltier to spend his remaining days in home confinement but will not pardon him for his underlying crimes,” the White House said.  

“It’s finally over — I’m going home,” Peltier said through the NDN Collective, an indigenous-led nonprofit advocacy group.

“I want to show the world I’m a good person with a good heart. I want to help the people, just like my grandmother taught me,” he added.

The context that led to both the agents’ deaths and Peltier’s conviction is almost lost to time. As was the case in many other segments of society, tensions were at an all-time high between the federal government and activists — in this case Native Americans — who believed they were being denied their civil and legal rights.

The agents’ deaths came at a time when tensions were high over a nationwide struggle between the U.S. government and activists for Native American civil and treaty rights. 

The tensions came to a head in February 1973, when members of a group called the American Indian Movement and other like-minded indigenous people took over the small town of Wounded Knee, South Dakota.

To the protestors, Wounded Knee had a sacred significance, having been the site, in December 1890, of the massacre of nearly 300 Lakota people at the hands of the U.S. Army.

The 1973 standoff between the AIM and federal and local law enforcement lasted 71 days, but even after it ended, a wave of violence persisted at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation that encompassed it.

On June 26, 1975, FBI Special Agents Ronald Williams and Jack Coler drove onto the reservation, searching for a man wanted for questioning in connection with a recent assault of two ranch hands and the theft of a pair of boots.

Driving in separate unmarked cars, Williams and Coler began following a Chevy Suburban carrying three occupants, one of them being Peltier. When the three men later exited the Suburban, a fire fight ensued.

Williams radioed for reinforcements, but the agents were dead before help came. Peltier escaped to Canada, but was later captured by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

Though Peltier maintained his innocence from the start, he was the only person convicted in connection with the agents’ deaths. The two other men in the truck, activists like himself, were also charged in the murders but were acquitted on evidence Peltier’s defense was not allowed to present.

Peltier was given two life sentences, without the possibility of parole. He later escaped from federal prison, but was quickly recaptured.

Nick Tilsen, the executive director of NDN Collective, said Peltier’s freedom was a direct result of 50 years of “intergenerational resistance, organizing and advocacy.” 

“Leonard Peltier’s liberation is our liberation — we will honor him by bringing him back to his homelands to live out the rest of his days surrounded by loved ones, healing, and reconnecting with his land and culture,” Tilsen said.

“Let Leonard’s freedom be a reminder that the entire so-called United States is built on the stolen lands of indigenous people — and that indigenous people have successfully resisted every attempt to oppress, silence and colonize us,” continued Tilsen. “The victory of freeing Leonard Peltier is a symbol of our collective strength — and our resistance will never stop.”

But not everyone agreed with Biden’s decision.

Among them was South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley.

“The Attorney General’s Office strongly opposes this action and has in recent months argued against any change in the defendant’s sentence,” Jackley said.

Peltier, he continued, “was convicted in the 1975 cold-blooded murders of FBI Special Agents Ronald Williams and Jack Coler on the Pine Ridge Reservation. That conviction has been reviewed and upheld by no fewer than 22 federal judges since then.

“Former Gov. Janklow, who was attorney general at the time of the murders, also opposed any reduction or change in sentence,” Jackley said. “I was the prosecutor in the Annie Mae Aquash murder trial that elicited the testimony from the witness recounting how Peltier described in his own words executing the FBI Special Agent by shooting him through his hand raised to protect himself into the face. The Attorney General’s Office will continue to stand with, and protect, law enforcement.”

Dan can be reached at [email protected] and @DanMcCue