With Biden’s grant of clemency, Leonard Peltier’s racist political imprisonment has ended

Leonard Peltier, Native American political prisoner, was granted clemency by President Joe Biden on Monday, ending his decades of imprisonment. Here, Peltier is seen in prison in 1986. | Joe Ledford/The Kansas City Star via AP

It is with the greatest euphoria, the greatest elation, call it what you will, that I pen this article celebrating the issuing of clemency to long-suffering, unjustly incarcerated Indigenous fighter and stalwart Leonard Peltier.

Monday morning, as I scrolled online news, I saw the headline—“Joe Biden Grants Clemency to Leonard Peltier.” I had to read it again and again to make sure my eyes were not deceiving or misleading me.

Just minutes before his term ended, Biden did what was so long hoped for, that which the Indigenous movement had so long fought for. In a statement, that was at the last minute, to say the least (Trump’s inauguration was already underway), Biden’s office announced that he was “commuting the life sentence imposed on Leonard Peltier so that he serves the remainder of his sentence in home confinement.”

Peltier has served almost 50 years, 47 to be exact, in prison for a crime he was never proven to have committed. He was accused by the federal government of murdering two FBI agents in a shooting confrontation on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota in 1975.

Peltier’s trial in 1977 was riddled with prosecutorial misconduct, including the forced testimony of witnesses, the withholding of exculpatory evidence, falsified affidavits, and most tellingly, the hiding of a ballistics report that established that the bullets that killed the agents were not from Peltier’s gun.

After these revelations came to light, the government reduced the charges against Peltier to “aiding and abetting” whoever did kill the agents—based absurdly on the fact that he was one of simply dozens of people (in other words just because he was present) on the scene when the shooting occurred. Peltier was convicted of the lesser charges and sentenced to two life terms. This was outrageous, racist sentencing.

Peltier is now 80 years old, mostly blind, and can only get around using a walker. He also has life-threatening health conditions.

Calls for his release have resonated from tribal leaders, U.S. Senators, members of Congress, virtually every human rights leader in recent history, and even from former U.S. Attorney James Reynolds, who in fact, prosecuted Peltier decades ago. Reynolds has said, “We were not able to prove that Mr. Peltier committed any offense on the Pine Ridge Reservation.”

In light of this preponderance of evidence of innocence, it must again be noted that in January 2017, then-President Barack Obama, to his everlasting disgrace, rejected Peltier’s request for clemency. The entire incarceration was unjust and racist. Peltier was targeted because he stood up unwaveringly for Indigenous rights.

Already at the Pine Ridge Reservation, Peltier’s supporters have prepared a home for him to live in upon his release. His release was decades overdue, but such is the so-called “justice system” that has for centuries enabled the long genocidal oppression suffered by Indigenous people. Peltier was the victim of that system.

Suffice it to say, it was the Indigenous movement and its allies that were responsible for this momentous victory.

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As with all op-eds published by People’s World, this article reflects the views of its author.

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CONTRIBUTOR

Albert Bender

Albert Bender is a Cherokee activist, historian, political columnist, and freelance reporter. He is currently writing a legal treatise on Native American sovereignty and working on a book on the war crimes committed by the U.S. against the Maya people in the Guatemalan civil war He is a consulting attorney on Indigenous sovereignty, land restoration, and Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) issues.