Joe Biden, in one of his final acts as president Monday, commuted the life sentence of Native American rights activist Leonard Peltier, who was convicted of killing two FBI agents on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and of escaping from federal prison.
Peltier, who is 80 years old, has been imprisoned for almost five decades. He has been in declining health in recent years from diabetes, hypertension, partial blindness from a stroke and bouts of Covid.
In a statement, the White House said the commutation will enable Peltier to spend his remaining days in home confinement, “but will not pardon him for his underlying crimes.”
Peltier’s daughter, Kathy Peltier, said she was in shock after learning what Biden had done after past presidential requests for clemency were unsuccessful.
“I’m just thankful that he had the balls and the guts to do it,” she said of Biden’s decision.
The family of one of the two agents fatally shot, Jack Coler, expressed frustration on Monday, arguing that a parole board rejection of supervised release in June was based on a sincere review of the case.
“The Coler family is frustrated and very angry after years of fighting to keep Peltier incarcerated,” it said. “The board decided against granting Peltier parole. This fact makes President Biden’s decision for a last-minute commutation more surprising and extremely disappointing.”
In a statement provided by the NDN Collective, an Indigenous-led advocacy organization, Peltier said he was ready to leave prison.
“It’s finally over — I’m going home,” Peltier said. “I want to show the world I’m a good person with a good heart.”
The U.S. Parole Commission in July denied Peltier’s latest bid for release, which left his fate in the hands of Biden. Peltier has long maintained his innocence, and his commutation has drawn fierce opposition from members of law enforcement who contend that his two consecutive life sentences are just in the fatal shootings of FBI agents Coler and Ron Williams in 1975 in South Dakota.
Christopher Wray, who became FBI director in 2017 before he retired Monday as President Donald Trump took office for his second term, had tried to persuade Biden not to commute Peltier’s sentence, arguing in a letter this month that it would be “wholly unjustified and would be an affront to the rule of law.”
“Mr. President, I urge you in the strongest terms possible: Do not pardon Leonard Peltier or cut his sentence short,” Wray wrote.
Biden’s commutation announcement came just minutes before Trump’s inauguration. Trump did not act on Peltier’s clemency request during his first term, and other presidents, Democrats and Republicans alike, also declined to intervene.
In a statement, the attorney who advocated for Peltier’s parole praised the outgoing president.
“President Biden took an enormous step toward healing and reconciliation with the Native American people in this country,” said the attorney, Kevin Sharp. “It took nearly 50 years to acknowledge the injustice of Leonard Peltier’s conviction and continued incarceration, but with the President’s act of mercy Leonard can finally return to his reservation and live out his remaining days.”
Peltier told NBC News in 2022 that he wasn’t interested in a presidential pardon because it would be granted for a crime he insists he is innocent of. Instead, he said, he wanted the opportunity to get out of prison and get a new trial.
“I would love to go home,” Peltier said by phone from the Federal Correctional Complex Coleman in Florida. “My family wants to take care of me. My tribe wants to take care of me.”
Over the decades, human rights and faith leaders, including Pope Francis and the Dalai Lama, and Nobel Peace Prize recipients such as Nelson Mandela and Bishop Desmond Tutu, have backed Peltier’s release.
Peltier’s story was exposed to MTV viewers in the 1990s in the video for Rage Against the Machine’s, “Freedom,” a breakout that helped the now-defunct alternative rock band become a voice for progressive causes and marginalized people.
On Monday, band cofounder Tom Morello rejoiced and rededicated the song to Peltier, saying on X, “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.”
Nick Tilsen, CEO of the NDN Collective, said Peltier’s conviction was emblematic of the struggle between Native Americans and the federal government, particularly on Indigenous lands.
“Leonard Peltier’s liberation is our liberation — we will honor him by bringing him back to his homelands to live out the rest of his days surrounded by loved ones, healing, and reconnecting with his land and culture,” Tilsen said in a statement.
But law enforcement organizations have accused Peltier’s supporters of trying to be misleading about the events that led to his arrest and conviction.
Natalie Bara, the president of the FBI Agents Association, which advocates for active and retired agents, said it is “outraged” by Biden’s reprieve for Peltier.
“This last-second, disgraceful act by then-President Biden, which does not change Peltier’s guilt but does release him from prison, is cowardly and lacks accountability,” Bara said in a statement. “It is a cruel betrayal to the families and colleagues of these fallen Agents and is a slap in the face of law enforcement.”
Leonard Peltier is led across the exercise yard of the Okalla prison in British Columbia to a waiting helicopter.
On June 26, 1975, Coler and Williams were on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota to arrest a man on a federal warrant in connection with the theft of cowboy boots, according to the agency’s investigative files.
While they were there, the agents radioed that they had come under fire in a shootout that lasted 10 minutes, the FBI said. Both men were fatally shot at close range. According to the officials, Peltier — a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians and then an activist with the American Indian Movement, a grassroots Indigenous rights group — was identified as the only person on the reservation in possession of the type of weapon that could fire the type of bullet that killed the agents.
But dozens of people had participated in the gunfight; at trial, two co-defendants were acquitted after they claimed self-defense. When Peltier was tried separately in 1977, no witnesses who could identify him as the shooter were presented, and unknown to his defense lawyers at the time, the federal government had withheld a ballistics report indicating the fatal bullets didn’t come from his weapon, according to court documents Peltier filed on appeal.
The FBI, however, maintained that his conviction was “rightly and fairly obtained” and “has withstood numerous appeals to multiple courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court.”
Kathy Peltier said she last saw her father in prison before the start of the Covid pandemic. She said the family is now “crying tears of joy” to know that he will be able to return to them and see his dozen great-grandchildren and all the people who supported him for decades.
“It’s a relief,” Kathy Peltier said. “We’ll actually be able to hug him, really hug him, and sit around for hours and not have a time limit and talk. There’s so much he’s missed out on.”
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
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