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INDIGENOUS ACTIVIST LEONARD PELTIER RELEASED FROM PRISON: ‘FINALLY
FREE’  
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Anna Betts and agencies
February 18, 2025
The Guardian
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_ Native American activist moves to home imprisonment after Joe Biden
commuted sentence at end of presidency _

Native American rights activist Leonard Peltier was released from
prison after nearly 50 years of wrongful incarceration., Angel White
Eyes/ NDN Collective

 

The Native American activist Leonard Peltier
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– convicted in 1975 for the killings of two FBI agents – was
released from federal prison on Tuesday after Joe Biden commuted his
sentence
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at the end of his presidency in January.

In a statement, Peltier said that he was “finally free!”

 
“They may have imprisoned me but they never took my spirit!” he
added. “Thank you to all my supporters throughout the world who
fought for my freedom.

“I am finally going home. I look forward to seeing my friends, my
family, and my community. It’s a good day today.”

Peltier had maintained his innocence
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since his conviction before Biden ordered
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Peltier – now 80 and in poor health – to transition to home
confinement after spending nearly 49 years federally imprisoned.

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

The National Congress of American Indians celebrated
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commutation, calling it “historic” and adding that the case “has
long symbolized the systemic injustices faced by Indigenous
Peoples”.

Peltier’s imprisonment resulted from a 1975 shootout that occurred
on South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Indian Reservation between two FBI
agents – who had entered the private property to serve arrest
warrants – and members of the American Indian Movement (AIM), a cold
war-era liberation group that sought to address police brutality and
discrimination against Native Americans
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The group of Native American men who traded gunfire with the FBI
agents included Peltier. The shootout resulted in the deaths of both
agents, Jack Coler and Ronald Williams, who were shot in the head.
Joseph Stuntz, a Native American, was killed, too.

Peltier, an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa
Indians in North Dakota and an active member in the AIM, was one of
several individuals indicted in connection with the agents’
killings.

He was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder and given two
consecutive life sentences.

Two other movement members were acquitted on self-defense grounds.

Peltier has consistently claimed that he did not shoot the agents. His
supporters have long argued that prosecutors withheld critical
evidence that could have supported his defense while also fabricating
affidavits against him.

 
Prosecutors argued during trial that Peltier shot both agents in the
head at point-blank range. Peltier admitted to being present and
firing a gun at a distance, but he claimed that it was in
self-defense.

A witness who initially testified to have seen Peltier shoot the
agents later recanted her testimony, saying her initial statements
were coerced.

 
For decades, advocates such as Nelson Mandela, Pope Francis and James
H Reynolds, the US attorney who handled the prosecution and appeal of
Peltier’s case
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have fought for his release.

In recent years, Reynolds has written to various presidents
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asking them to grant Peltier clemency and calling his prosecution
“unjust”
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In a letter to Biden in 2021
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Reynolds stated that Peltier’s continued incarceration reflected a
flawed justice system.

Peltier’s “conviction and continued incarceration is a testament
to a time and a system of justice that no longer has a place in our
society”, he wrote
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Peltier was denied parole as recently
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as July and was not eligible to be considered for it again until 2026.

Biden commuted Peltier’s sentence despite objections from the former
FBI director Christopher Wray. Wray had called Peltier “a
remorseless killer” in a letter to Biden, which was obtained by the
Associated Press
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and urged the president to not give him clemency.

Wray argued that granting Peltier “any relief from his conviction or
sentence” would be “wholly unjustified” and “would be an
affront to the rule of law”.

_The Associated Press contributed reporting_

* Leonard Peltier
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