Biden gives parting commutation to prominent Native activist

On Monday, moments before Donald Trump’s inauguration, President Joe Biden commuted the life sentence of American Indian Movement activist Leonard Peltier, who has been in prison for nearly 50 years, from two life sentences to home confinement. In a press release, Biden said: “This commutation will enable Mr. Peltier to spend his remaining days in home confinement but will not pardon him for his underlying crimes.”

An internal FBI memo from 1972 showed that the agency planned to target AIM activists, referring to them as “violence-prone individuals.” In 1977, Peltier, a member of the Lakota tribe who was a prominent activist for Native American rights, was convicted of killing two FBI agents, Ronald Williams and Jack Coler, and given two life sentences. The agents died as the result of point-blank gunshots to their heads, which Peltier and his supporters have insisted that he was not responsible for.

Peltier’s imprisonment over the years has become, as Mother Jones reported in 2016, “an international symbol of the mistreatment of Native Americans by the US criminal justice system.” As we wrote then, Peltier detailed the following in a petition for clemency that was sent to then-President Barack Obama’s Justice Department in 2016:

After the FBI agents came on to the private property, “I heard shooting, grabbed my rifle, and ran towards a residence where there were women and children, but quickly ran in another direction because my presence had attracted additional gunfire to the area.” He says the area was surrounded by more than 100 FBI agents, SWAT team members, Bureau of Indian Affairs police, and members of the GOON squad.

“Along with many other American Indians who were present that day, I fired shots in the direction of men whom I later learned were federal agents,” Peltier notes in the petition. “At the end of extended gunfire, three men lay dead.”

Over the years, human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, have urged that Peltier be released. In July, the organization sent a letter to Biden urging that the now-80-year-old be granted clemency, writing that “there are serious and ongoing concerns about the fairness of trial and conviction.” Amnesty International also noted that “the former US Attorney whose office handled the prosecution, James Reynolds, has since called for clemency.”

“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,” a former FBI agent told the Guardian in 2023 of the FBI blocking Peltier’s release in the past.

Peltier has also continued to speak about Indigenous rights while behind bars, saying in 2023: “Although we have made many gains and won some victories in the courts, we are still fighting against the large corporations for the theft of our lands and minerals.”

“It took nearly 50 years to acknowledge the injustice of Leonard Peltier’s conviction and continued incarceration,” Kevin Sharp, who represented Peltier for five years, said in a press release, “but with the President’s act of mercy Leonard can finally return to his reservation and live out his remaining days.”