Congressman Raúl Grijalva recently helped write a letter signed by nearly three dozen House and Senate Democrats, urging President Joe Biden to pardon an aging Native American rights activist, who was convicted of murdering FBI Agents Jack Coler and Ronald Williams in 1975.
Leonard Peltier, 80, is from the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians in North Dakota and part of the American Indian Movement. He was found guilty of first-degree murder and given two consecutive life sentences in 1977 for his role in a fatal shootout on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota.
High-profile figures such as Pope Francis, Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela and the Dalai Lama have lobbied for Peltier’s freedom, but outgoing FBI Director Christopher Wray called him “a remorseless killer.”
James Reynolds, a former U.S. Attorney whose office handled the case, penned a 2021 letter claiming that his conviction and continued incarceration is “a testament to a time and a system that no longer has a place in our society,” adding that Peltier served almost a half century “on the basis of minimal evidence, a result that I strongly doubt would be upheld in any court today.”
Similarly, Grijalva has been sending letters to free Peltier since 2021. The ranking member of the House Natural Resources Committee even had a phone call with Peltier in 2022 shortly after testing positive for COVID-19 while incarcerated at the Coleman Federal Correctional Complex in Florida.
Hawaii Sen. Brian Schatz, chair of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, co-authored this latest call for clemency with Grijalva and championed it from the Senate floor.
“Even if you believe that he did in fact commit the crime,” Schatz said, “the time is now to let him spend whatever remaining days he has at home to die with his family. He’s done his time, he’s of poor age and poor health. ... This is what mercy is for.”
Peltier has since lost his sight and had been hospitalized in October. In April, the Bureau of Prisons denied him a compassionate release or reduction in sentence. A few months later, the U.S. Parole Commission denied him parole in July.
In their letter, the 34 federal lawmakers told Biden: “These recent denials mean only you have the unique ability to grant him clemency and rectify this grave injustice that has long troubled human rights advocates and Native Peoples.”
But last Friday, Biden granted 39 pardons for non-violent offenses and commuted 1,500 sentences, setting a clemency record for a sitting-president in a single day. Peltier wasn’t named. Biden also pardoned his son, Hunter, earlier this month.
