As one of his final presidential acts on Monday, Joe Biden commuted the sentence of Indigenous activist Leonard Peltier, who was convicted of killing two FBI agents in a 1975 shootout in South Dakota.
Peltier was the only person convicted; two more alleged accomplices involved with the American Indian Movement — Robert Robideau and Dino Butler — were charged, but later acquitted.
His defense claimed that evidence against Peltier had been falsified.
The now 80-year-old has been incarcerated for nearly five decades following his sentencing in 1977. Since then, he’s battled several health challenges, including diabetes, kidney disease, COVID-19 and vision loss.
Despite Peltier just being denied parole in July, he’ll now be heading home.
Arizona Congressman Raúl Grijalva has led efforts on Capitol Hill to grant Peltier clemency since 2021. But unlike a pardon, Biden’s commutation doesn’t exonerate him of guilt.
FBI Agents Association President Natalie Bara called Biden’s decision to commute Peltier’s life sentence “cowardly” and “a slap in the face of law enforcement,” in a statement.
On social media, Grijalva wrote the decision is “right, merciful and a decent one,” while former Interior Secretary Deb Haaland shared that Peltier's release “signifies the justice that has long evaded so many Native Americans for so many decades.”
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