Activist Leonard Peltier’s prison sentence commuted on final day of Biden administration
National Congress of American Indians called Peltier “one of the longest incarcerated Native American political prisoners.”
A version of this story was originally published in Alberta Native News.
In one of his final acts in office, U.S. President Joe Biden commuted the sentence of Leonard Peltier, a Native American activist who was convicted of killing two federal officers on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota in 1975.
Biden didn’t outright pardon Peltier, an 80-year-old elder of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa who survived the federal Indian boarding school system—the U.S. equivalent of residential schools—but permitted him to serve the rest of his sentence from home.
A Jan. 20 statement from Biden cited Peltier’s age, poor health and the fact that he “has spent the majority of his life (nearly half a century) in prison.”
Biden commuted Peltier’s sentence over the objection of Christopher Wray, his FBI director, who wrote a letter to the president in early 2024 calling Peltier a “remorseless killer,” although Peltier has consistently maintained his innocence.
Peltier was a leader in the American Indian Movement (AIM), which in 1973 led an occupation of Wounded Knee, the site in South Dakota where the U.S. military massacred 300 Lakota people in 1890, to protest violations of their Treaty rights.
In response, U.S. law enforcement spent the next three years engaged in a campaign of surveillance, harassment and violence against local AIM members, killing 64 people. They did so with the help of local paramilitary collaborators, the Guardians Of the Oglala Nation, or GOON Squad.
In this context, Federal Bureau of Investigation agents Jack Coler and Ron Williams entered Jumping Bull Ranch on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation to arrest a young Native man in June 1975. There were 30 AIM members gathered on the ranch, including Peltier, who had been invited by elders.
A shootout ensued, resulting in the deaths of Coler and Williams, as well as local Native Joe Stuntz, whose death was never investigated.
Peltier was charged in the officers’ deaths, as were fellow AIM members Dino Butler and Bob Robideau. Fearing an unfair trial, Peltier fled to Canada, where he was extradited by the RCMP and returned to the U.S. to stand trial in February 1976.
Peltier was convicted in 1977, despite prosecutors admitting they had no direct evidence tying him to the officers’ killing.
Documents obtained by his lawyers through a 1980 freedom of information request revealed that key ballistics evidence that called into question whether his gun was used to kill the officers was withheld from the defence, but the Court of Appeal denied a 1986 request for a re-trial.
Amnesty International USA executive director Paul O’Brien cited “serious human rights concerns about the fairness of his trial” in a Jan. 20 statement applauding Biden for commuting Peltier’s sentence, although Amnesty has long called for full clemency.
Peltier’s release was praised by the National Congress of American Indians, who called him “one of the longest incarcerated Native American political prisoners.”
“After nearly 50 years of unjust imprisonment, President Biden’s decision to grant Leonard Peltier the opportunity to return home is a powerful act of compassion and an important step toward healing,” said NCAI president Mark Macarro in a statement.
Deb Haaland, a member of the Laguna Pueblo tribe who became the first Native American cabinet secretary when Biden appointed her secretary of the interior in 2021, said she was “beyond words” about the commutation of Peltier’s sentence.
“His release from prison signifies a measure of justice that has long evaded so many Native Americans for so many decades,” Haaland wrote on Twitter.
Musician and activist Tom Morello, who played guitar in the American rap-metal band Rage Against the Machine (RATM), celebrated Peltier’s release on Twitter, posting a link to the music video for his band’s 1992 song “Freedom,” which brought attention to Peltier’s plight.
“For almost 5 decades human rights organizations, Native American activists, average everyday people and bands like RATM have lobbied for the release of political prisoner, [sic] Leonard Peltier,” wrote Morello.
“Leonard has become a friend over the years and I am so glad at 80 years old and in poor health he will be able to spend his remaining years with family and friends.”
Trump begins second presidency with suite of executive orders
President Donald Trump marked the start of his second administration on Jan. 20 by signing more than two dozen executive orders, which included pardoning all people convicted of participating in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, further militarizing the southern border and persecuting transgender people.
The executive order freeing the Capitol rioters refers to their prosecution as a “grave national injustice that has been perpetrated upon the American people over the last four years,” and says their pardoning “begins a process of national reconciliation.”
Trump proclaimed a “national emergency” on the U.S.-Mexico border, enabling the Department of Defense to deploy the military and the National Guard to the border. This was supplemented by an executive order declaring Mexican drug cartels, as well as the transnational MS-13 and Tren de Aragua gangs, “specially designated global terrorists,” which would allow for the deployment of special forces to Mexico.
Another executive order, dubbed “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government,” mandates government documents refer only to the biological sex Americans were assigned, not at birth but “at conception,” and blocks public funding for gender affirming care.
Trump also restored the death penalty, withdrew the U.S. from the World Health Organization, declared a “national energy emergency” to facilitate fossil fuel extraction on federal lands, and ended birthright citizenship.
You can shuffle through the series of executive orders, proclamations and memorandums Trump ordered yesterday here.
If you’re wondering what the difference between an executive order, proclamation and memorandum is, USA Today has got you covered with a handy explainer.
In other news …
Calling Canada “a very bad abuser,” Trump announced that his promised 25% tariff on Canadian and Mexican imports will be going into effect on Feb. 1.
Emma Paling writes in The Maple of how “the very tools Trump is threatening to dismantle are the same ones the United States has used for decades to influence and dominate other countries,” especially Canada.
Jake Landau has an interesting piece in his newsletter outlining the ways Canada could use its economic heft to “freeze and starve the treacherous Yankee” in response to Trump’s economic warfare and annexationist threats.
The Anti-Defamation League, an organization ostensibly committed to fighting antisemitism, described Elon Musk’s inauguration day Nazi salute as “an awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm,” telling critics of the world’s richest man, who has a track record of endorsing antisemitic conspiracy theories, to “take a breath.” If Israel critics Rashida Tlaib or Ilhan Omar had made the same gesture, they’d no doubt be singing a different tune.
The International Criminal Court is preparing to insulate itself from U.S. sanctions in preparation for a “worst case scenario,” in which the Trump administration seeks to bully the court into dropping war crimes charges against Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant.
The A/V Corner
Watch: British journalist Owen Jones outlines why the ceasefire Trump brokered in Gaza promises to be short-lived.
The grudging, partial release of Leonard Peltier was the only good thing that can be associated with the Biden Genocide administration.
The American treatment of Leonard Peltier is very similar in many details to their framing of a fifteen year old Canadian boy, Omar Khadr. It is informative to see how 'American justice' works in practice.
If they see you as an enemy of their colonial state..........they convict whether or not they have any evidence. American goon squads killed numerous people in the AIM movement, including Anna Marie Agonish, a Canadian............and no one was arrested or tried.
But both Pelletier and Omar were convicted on assumption evidence....there was nothing to prove they fired the weapons that killed important people...ie White Americans....but that didn't matter.
Guilty until proven innocent being the backward kind of justice the Empire shows anyone who resists its colonial rights to do whatever it wants......wherever it wants.
A total boycott of such a nation makes a lot of sense. And shame on the lot of us for being so cavalier when it comes to the actual justice we claim to honour.