Supporters of Leonard Peltier are calling on President Biden to grant clemency to the Indigenous leader and activist, who marked his 80th birthday behind bars on Thursday after nearly a half-century in prison for a crime he says he did not commit. The ailing Peltier, who uses a walker and has serious health conditions, including diabetes, has always maintained his innocence over the 1975 killing of two FBI agents in a shootout on the Pine Ridge Reservation. His conviction was riddled with irregularities and prosecutorial misconduct, and he is considered to be the longest-serving political prisoner in the United States. For much of the last four years, Peltier has been held under near-total lockdown. For more on Peltier and the campaign to free him, we speak with Nick Tilsen, president of the NDN Collective, and two attorneys on Peltier’s legal defense team, Jenipher Jones and Moira Meltzer-Cohen.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
Amnesty International is calling on President Biden to grant clemency to the Indigenous leader Leonard Peltier, who turned 80 years old Thursday after nearly half a century in prison for a crime he says he did not commit. Peltier has always maintained his innocence over the 1975 killing of two FBI agents in a shootout on the Pine Ridge Reservation, his conviction riddled with irregularities and prosecutorial misconduct.
In a letter to President Biden last week, Amnesty International USA wrote, quote, “Given the ongoing, unresolved concerns about the fairness of Leonard Peltier’s trial and legal process, that he has spent nearly 50 years in prison, his age, the recent denial of parole and compassionate release, and ongoing and chronic health issues, we are asking you to commute Leonard Peltier’s sentence and release him. This is not only timely but a necessary measure in the interests of both justice and mercy,” they wrote.
For more on Leonard Peltier’s case, we’re joined by Nick Tilsen, president of the NDN Collective, an Indigenous-led organization, citizen of the Oglala Lakota Nation, joining us from Atlanta, Georgia. We’re also joined by two members of Leonard Peltier’s legal defense team. Jenipher Jones is the managing attorney at the law firm For the People, lead counsel for Leonard Peltier’s case, joining us from Denver, Colorado. And here in New York, we’re joined by Moira Meltzer-Cohen, co-counsel on the case, educator and abolitionist.
We welcome you all to Democracy Now! I want to begin with Jenipher Jones. For people who have not followed Leonard Peltier’s case — I know he’s in the Coleman prison in Florida, and he just came out of a number of days in the prison hospital, just turned 80 years old — explain why he is behind bars and still behind bars after 50 years.
JENIPHER JONES: Well, good morning. Thank you, Amy, for having me on.
And that is quite a question and a complex question, because it has a lot to do with Leonard, what is keeping Leonard in prison now. I think what’s important to clarify is the things that put Leonard in prison, those irregularities, those defects, the misconduct, are different from the things that are holding him in there today, so the procedures, the conditions of confinement, the law that is being used by the United States Parole Commission, which we assert is the wrong law and, therefore, in violation of the ex post facto clause to the U.S. Constitution. And that’s also consistent with the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention in their evaluation of Leonard’s current detention and incarceration right now.
He’s an old law prisoner. There’s a complex set of laws that are currently keeping him in. And so, we’ve been very clear, myself and co-counsel, that we intend to bring this to court. Leonard’s case has not been reviewed by a court in over a decade, and yet there are still matters, substantive matters, that have not been raised in his case, and we intend to do that, including the medical issues, of course, other treaty violations and due process — serious due process issues that are causing him to be bound within the carceral system at this point, though he is 80 years old, reliant on a walker, has severe diabetes and a host of other health conditions for which he should not at all be incarcerated at this time, and apart from the fact — notwithstanding the fact that Congress did not intend for Leonard to be — or any prisoner convicted at that time of the offense, to be incarcerated in this particular manner.
AMY GOODMAN: I spoke to Leonard Peltier on the phone from prison in Florida in 2012 during the Obama administration.
AMY GOODMAN: Leonard, this is Amy Goodman from Democracy Now! I was —
LEONARD PELTIER: Oh, hi, Amy. How are you?
AMY GOODMAN: Hi. I’m good. I was wondering if you have a message for President Obama.
LEONARD PELTIER: I just hope he can, you know, stop the wars that are going on in this world, and stop getting — killing all those people getting killed, and, you know, give the Black Hills back to my people, and turn me loose.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you share with people at the news conference and with President Obama your case for why you should be — your sentence should be commuted, why you want clemency?
LEONARD PELTIER: Well, I never got a fair trial, for one. … They wouldn’t allow me to put up a defense, and manufactured evidence, manufactured witnesses, tortured witnesses. You know, the list is — just goes on. So I think I’m a very good candidate for — after 37 years, for clemency or house arrest, at least.
AMY GOODMAN: So, that was Leonard Peltier in 2012. In November 2000, on Election Day, I had a chance to interview then-President Bill Clinton, who had called in to our radio station, Pacifica station WBAI, to get out the vote for Hillary for Senate and Al Gore for president. I used the opportunity to ask him about the case of Leonard Peltier.
AMY GOODMAN: President Clinton, since it’s rare to get you on the phone, let me ask you another question. And that is, what is your position on granting Leonard Peltier, the Native American activist, executive clemency?
PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON: Well, I don’t — I don’t have a position I can announce yet. I think if — I believe there is a new application for him in there. And when I have time, after the election is over, I’m going to review all the remaining executive clemency applications and, you know, see what the merits dictate. I will try to do what I think the right thing to do is based on the evidence.
AMY GOODMAN: So, that was almost a quarter of a century ago. Moira Meltzer-Cohen, you’re co-counsel on the case. You attended the parole hearing in July. Talk about the significance of this.
MOIRA MELTZER-COHEN: Well, Leonard had not had a full reconsideration hearing for parole, I believe, since 2008. We put together a comprehensive parole submission for him. We were really committed to getting all of the evidence before the Parole Commission. And just to give you a sense of this, his parole submission was two volumes. It was nearly 500 pages, or a little over 500 pages. And, of course, it included not only letters of support and assurance from his friends and family and supporters, but many, many letters from experts, including, of course, a doctor and a social worker, his spiritual adviser, but also from historians, sociologists, criminologists, experts on aging in prison, experts on the history of the case. We had a really beautiful letter on the ways in which his continued confinement far from his ancestral lands is a violation of not only treaty law, but religious free exercise rights. We included letters from people who had lived through the reign of terror on Pine Ridge, not just people who had been present, but former law enforcement. We had letters supporting release from people who had been involved in the original prosecution and appeal, not just his defense attorneys, but people who had represented the government in prosecuting Mr. Peltier, about why they had ultimately, if belatedly, determined that he ought to be released. And even the Vatican sent a message of support for his release.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to bring Nick Tilsen into this conversation, president and CEO of NDN Collective, an Indigenous-led organization, usually on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, where the shootout took place. Your parents were at that time there. If you can talk about the history of Leonard Peltier’s case? Now you’re in Atlanta. And the significance of what he has argued all of these years, with these two FBI agent coming onto the reservation? The case against Leonard Peltier, he has always denied that he killed these two FBI agents in a shootout.
NICK TILSEN: I mean, I think the most important thing to remember or for people to understand is there was a war happening on that side — at that time. And the United States government was arming one side of that battle. And there was hundreds of agents in and out of Pine Ridge during that time. Those agents came up to the camp in 1975 with aggression, at a time in which people were being killed for standing up for Indigenous peoples’ rights.
The conditions at that time were directly related to why his co-defendants were originally let off, Dino Butler, Bob Robideau. And they were let off because of reasons for self-defense and because of the climate that was happening at that time on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.
And the United States government and the Federal Bureau of Investigation were engaging in a counterintelligence war to shut down the American Indian Movement and the Indigenous Peoples Movement at that time, because it was building power and it was becoming a threat to the United States. And it was showing — it was holding up the mirror of what happened to Indigenous people throughout history. It was in that climate and those conditions in which the shootout happened.
AMY GOODMAN: And explain where Leonard Peltier was, why he wasn’t tried at that time and could well have been acquitted with the other two.
NICK TILSEN: He was in Canada at the time. He was in Canada at the time. He had evaded to Canada. And while he was in Canada, the United States government engaged in an illegal extradition from Canada. And they coerced witnesses, and they provided falsified documents to the Canadian government. And those falsified documents, the coerced witness, it was later found out that, of course, those were — contributed to the illegal extradition of Leonard Peltier from Canada back to the United States. But they continued his prosecution anyway.
AMY GOODMAN: And talk about who Leonard Peltier was and is, Nick, his significance in the community, his standing back then in 1975, and what he’s been able to do from prison right through to now. And then I want to ask about the lockdown.
NICK TILSEN: Well, Leonard Peltier was an organizer and an activist of the American Indian Movement, that helped fight for the Native American Freedom of Religion Act, that helped fight for the Indian Self-Determination Act, that were fighting for many of the things that we are beneficiary of today as Indigenous people. And they were fighting for liberation of people and the rebuilding of Indigenous nations. Also, he was doing so, organizing, as a boarding school survivor, raising awareness about what was happening at that time in Indian country. And so, he created the conditions, many of the things that we benefit from today throughout Indian country, but he has never been able to benefit from them himself.
Now, from prison, he has been a writer. He has helped raise money and awareness around Indigenous issues. He has continued to maintain his position as a human rights leader and bringing light to what’s happening to Indian people even from prison. And today, you know, he is one of the most world-renowned Indigenous human rights advocates, and he’s been doing that from prison. He has stayed his course. He has stayed strong. He has helped bring light to Indigenous issues not just on Pine Ridge, in the United States, but around the world. And so, he is revered by Indian country as a leader. And it would mean the world to have him come back and have him released from prison. And I think it would absolutely be part of the legacy of the Biden administration and its relationship to Indigenous peoples of this land.
AMY GOODMAN: Is there any indication — and I’ll put this question to all three of you, whoever wants to take it — of what Biden — I mean, I was asking President Clinton a quarter of a century ago if he’s weighing clemency. He said, “Yes, we’re looking at this.” Moira, do you have any indication from the Biden administration right now?
MOIRA MELTZER-COHEN: I have not been in touch with the Biden administration. I think Nick may have a better sense of that.
AMY GOODMAN: Nick Tilsen?
NICK TILSEN: Where it’s at right now is there’s a pending application. There’s a pending application to move forward for executive clemency. And President Biden could act on that any day. He could act on that any day. If we’re going to sit here and think about the political landscape, the biggest likelihood of him doing executive clemency will happen after the election, before the inauguration. So, during that time is the absolute time that we have to build up the pressure and put the pressure on him. And so, at that time, we’ll have more of an indication of what’s happening.
You know, we’re maneuvering — the FBI is one of the biggest challenges right now. It’s because the FBI continues — all of these, you know, five decades later, it’s continuing their effort to keep Leonard Peltier in prison. And so, we have to rise up and, you know, hope that the president of the United States has some courage, some compassion to do what is right and to release Leonard Peltier through executive clemency.
AMY GOODMAN: And, Jenipher, if you could talk about the lockdown right now, Jenipher Jones, lead counsel for Leonard Peltier?
JENIPHER JONES: Yes, absolutely. These lockdowns having been chronic and consistent, particularly for the last four years of Leonard’s incarceration. They are called modified operations by the Bureau of Prisons. But what it means for Leonard, someone who is an elder, who is medically vulnerable, it means that he does not get the diabetic food that he needs, the exercise that he needs, the religious services that he requires, and he is locked down for 22 hours a day, only allowed to take a shower.
But it’s uncharacteristic right now, because I’ve not heard from him in over seven days. And that is concerning. Obviously, it is heartbreaking, because he is sitting in lockdown on his 80th birthday — or, was sitting in lockdown on his 80th birthday. And really, this is a form of solitary confinement and a means of hastening death by incarceration. All of these different characteristics of Leonard’s incarceration are, in fact, means of death by incarceration. So, we wholly object to the lockdowns. We believe that Leonard — and we have requested a medical transfer. It is wholly inappropriate for him, for many reasons, notwithstanding his medical reasons, for him to be at USP Coleman I sitting in lockdown, reliant on a walker, at 80 years old.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Jenipher Jones, as well as Nick Tilsen — Jenipher Jones and Moira Meltzer-Cohen are co-counsels. Jenipher is lead counsel on the Leonard Peltier case. I want to thank you all for being with us.
