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JOE BIDEN IS LEONARD PELTIER’S LAST HOPE  
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Rose Styron and Alex Matthiessen
January 7, 2025
Guardian
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_ The imprisoned Native American is long overdue for clemency. Joe
Biden is probably the last president who can give it to him _

"Leonard Peltier in 1992", by Sheila Steele (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

 

s Joe Biden [[link removed]] prepares
to leave office, he has a chance to do something singularly honorable
in the name of American justice and basic human rights. With a grant
of clemency to Leonard Peltier, Biden could ameliorate a
half-century-old injustice not just against Peltier but, in effect,
against Native peoples everywhere, many of whom consider Peltier an
enduring symbol of racism and state-sponsored oppression in the US.

For those Americans who may not have heard of him, Leonard Peltier is
known around the world as the US government’s number one political
prisoner. A member of the Chippewa and Lakota Nations, Peltier was
convicted in 1976 for the deaths, the year before, of two FBI
[[link removed]] agents killed during a
shootout on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. While he was
in the area at the time of the shootout, Peltier, who maintains his
innocence, has served nearly 50 years and counting for a murder he was
never proved to have committed – or even to have aided and abetted.

It is widely understood that the federal government railroaded Peltier
into prison by withholding and falsifying evidence, coercing witnesses
and forcing a change of jurisdiction, among other acts of
prosecutorial misconduct and malice. The US attorney James Reynolds,
whose office handled the prosecution and appeal of the case, issued a
public apology in 2021, acknowledging that the federal government
failed to “prove that Mr Peltier personally committed any offense on
the Pine Ridge Reservation”. Reynolds has since called on Biden to
release Peltier.

President Biden: stand up to Chevron and pardon Steven Donziger
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Reynolds’s statement alone should have been grounds for granting
Peltier parole and ultimately clemency. Yet, despite multiple pleas
over many decades, Peltier – who just turned 80 and is suffering
from multiple health crises including diabetes, kidney disease, heart
issues and near blindness – continues to languish in a high-security
prison in Florida called Coleman 1.

Starting with the breakout of Covid-19 nearly five years ago, Peltier
and his fellow inmates at Coleman 1 have been regularly subjected to
lockdowns, the practice of confining inmates in their cells for nearly
24 hours a day without the usual breaks, human contact and access to
needed healthcare. This despite the fact that most, including Peltier,
committed no in-prison infractions.

During these lockdowns, which can last for months at a time, inmates
are often subjected to cold air, non-working toilets (ie raw sewage),
and other conditions equivalent to torture, which have led to the
deaths of more than a few of them. The lockdowns are tantamount to
solitary confinement – which is defined as being imprisoned in
isolation for 22 to 24 hours a day – essentially a death sentence
for an elderly man with life-threatening ailments.

Five presidents dating back to Bill Clinton have been petitioned to
grant Peltier clemency. Some, including Clinton and Barack Obama,
apparently have looked at Peltier’s case. Yet for whatever reason,
each of the five ultimately declined to act. One cannot know for sure
what persuaded these powerful men to refuse Peltier his freedom. But
one thing is certain: for decades the FBI has waged a high-pressure
political campaign on the courts, US Parole Commission and the White
House to make sure Peltier never draws another breath as a free man.

The retired FBI agent Coleen Rowley, who worked with prosecutors on
the Peltier case, has stated: “The FBI’s opposition to the release
of Leonard Peltier is driven by vindictiveness and misplaced
loyalties.” In a recent letter sent to Biden appealing for
Peltier’s release, Rowley wrote: “Retribution seems to have
emerged as the primary if not sole reason for continuing what looks
from the outside to have become an emotion-driven ‘FBI Family’
vendetta.”

According to the Department of Justice, Peltier’s crime, and the
parole board’s rationale for keeping him locked up, is that he aided
and abetted the murder of two FBI agents. Yet the two people he is
accused of aiding and abetting – Dino Butler and Bob Robideau –
were acquitted of the murders within months of going to trial in 1976.

In 2022, the UN human rights council’s working group on arbitrary
detention issued an opinion outlining the violation of Peltier’s
civil rights and calling for his immediate release. Over the years,
the late Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and even Pope
Francis, have called on the US government to release Peltier.

In mid-December, Biden granted clemency to 1,500 prisoners. A week
later, he commuted the sentences of nearly all the country’s death
row inmates to life without parole. He may still be considering
issuing pre-emptive pardons to those Donald Trump has cast as his
enemies to prevent the president-elect from deploying the FBI and
Department of Justice to harass or imprison them for purely political
reasons.

Joe Biden has shown admirable sensitivity to the plight of Native
Americans [[link removed]]. He is
the first president in history to appoint a Native American to his
cabinet. Biden is the only president to have publicly acknowledged the
atrocious conditions and abuse of young Native Americans in the
US-backed Indian boarding schools – where Leonard Peltier was
forcibly sent and mistreated starting when he was just nine years old.
Just a few days ago, the president established a pair of national
monuments in California honoring two Native American tribes.

Without Biden’s intervention, Peltier will die in prison. Given the
shameful history of this case, the long sentence he has already served
and the extreme jeopardy of his health, it is time to let Leonard
Peltier return home to his people and die in peace. Biden has the
opportunity to place the US on the side of mercy and justice, not
further retribution.

If Biden commutes Peltier’s sentence, he will be hailed around the
world – by heads of state and advocates alike – for matching
America’s vaunted adherence to human rights with action at home.

Joe Biden has a chance to take a big step toward healing the wounds of
Native Americans. We urge him to seize this opportunity and by doing
so distinguish himself as one of modern history’s most compassionate
and just American presidents.

_Rose Styron is a poet and longtime human rights activist with Amnesty
International. Alex Matthiessen is an environmental advocate and
former Clinton administration political appointee. His father, Peter
Matthiessen, wrote the definitive account of the Peltier case, In the
Spirit of Crazy Horse_

_The Guardian [[link removed]] is globally renowned
for its coverage of politics, the environment, science, social
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* Leonard Peltier
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* Native Americans
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