Leonard Peltier, America's Longest Serving Political Prisoner

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Leonard Peltier has been in prison since 1977.   He was convicted for being involved in a 1975 shootout at the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota in which two FBI agents were killed.  Two other Native Americans who were also at the scene were acquitted after claiming self-defense,  and the FBI pursued the prosecution of Peltier with a sense of urgency, feeling that the agency's credibility depended on the conviction of someone.    

Back in the 1970's Leonard Peltier was an activist with AIM, the American Indian Movement, an organization that the FBI had been working to undermine and discredit.  The shootout at Pine Ridge was the culmination of the government's work to bring down AIM, but the death of the two FBI agents placed an onus on the agency and its tactics, and many felt that the Bureau needed a Native American fall guy as proof that AIM was a dangerous group and the FBI's pursuit of them had been justified.

Peltier's trial was little more than a political farce.  Prosecutors hid evidence, the FBI threatened and intimidated witnesses., and one juror admitted early during the trail that she had a bias against Native Americans, but she was never dismissed from the jury.   Peltier was found guilty of being involved in the shootings and sentenced to two life terms in prison.

Today Leonard Peltier is a tired old man (age 77), who suffers from diabetes and other age-related maladies, and he would like to go home and spend his final years with his children and grandchildren.   Throughout his forty-five years in prison Leonard Peltier has always maintained his innocence, but even if he has some level of guilt for being at the scene of the shootings, he has certainly paid his debt to society - and then some.

Peltier has been eligible for parole since 1993, but that has not happened.   His last hope for leaving the federal penal system is through presidential clemency or a pardon, but at this point President Biden is giving the impression that he is not really cognizant of, or interested in, Peltier's case.

And for it's part, the FBI has always been steadfastly opposed to Leonard Peltier's potential release from prison.  The Native Americans embarrassed the Federal Bureau of Investigation at Pine Ridge, and that hoary old beaurcpatic agency will not forget - or forgive.

But as a nation we are better than that.

It is time for President Biden to step forward and do the right thing.  Leonard Peltier probably should have never been in prison in the first place, and he certainly should not die there.  Do the right thing, Joe, and let him go!