Portside

s Joe Biden prepares to leave office, he has a chance to do something singularly honorable in the name of American justice and basic human rights. With a grant of clemency to Leonard Peltier, Biden could ameliorate a half-century-old injustice not just against Peltier but, in effect, against Native peoples everywhere, many of whom consider Peltier an enduring symbol of racism and state-sponsored oppression in the US.

For those Americans who may not have heard of him, Leonard Peltier is known around the world as the US government’s number one political prisoner. A member of the Chippewa and Lakota Nations, Peltier was convicted in 1976 for the deaths, the year before, of two FBI agents killed during a shootout on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. While he was in the area at the time of the shootout, Peltier, who maintains his innocence, has served nearly 50 years and counting for a murder he was never proved to have committed – or even to have aided and abetted.

It is widely understood that the federal government railroaded Peltier into prison by withholding and falsifying evidence, coercing witnesses and forcing a change of jurisdiction, among other acts of prosecutorial misconduct and malice. The US attorney James Reynolds, whose office handled the prosecution and appeal of the case, issued a public apology in 2021, acknowledging that the federal government failed to “prove that Mr Peltier personally committed any offense on the Pine Ridge Reservation”. Reynolds has since called on Biden to release Peltier.

Reynolds’s statement alone should have been grounds for granting Peltier parole and ultimately clemency. Yet, despite multiple pleas over many decades, Peltier – who just turned 80 and is suffering from multiple health crises including diabetes, kidney disease, heart issues and near blindness – continues to languish in a high-security prison in Florida called Coleman 1.

Starting with the breakout of Covid-19 nearly five years ago, Peltier and his fellow inmates at Coleman 1 have been regularly subjected to lockdowns, the practice of confining inmates in their cells for nearly 24 hours a day without the usual breaks, human contact and access to needed healthcare. This despite the fact that most, including Peltier, committed no in-prison infractions.

During these lockdowns, which can last for months at a time, inmates are often subjected to cold air, non-working toilets (ie raw sewage), and other conditions equivalent to torture, which have led to the deaths of more than a few of them. The lockdowns are tantamount to solitary confinement – which is defined as being imprisoned in isolation for 22 to 24 hours a day – essentially a death sentence for an elderly man with life-threatening ailments.

Five presidents dating back to Bill Clinton have been petitioned to grant Peltier clemency. Some, including Clinton and Barack Obama, apparently have looked at Peltier’s case. Yet for whatever reason, each of the five ultimately declined to act. One cannot know for sure what persuaded these powerful men to refuse Peltier his freedom. But one thing is certain: for decades the FBI has waged a high-pressure political campaign on the courts, US Parole Commission and the White House to make sure Peltier never draws another breath as a free man.

The retired FBI agent Coleen Rowley, who worked with prosecutors on the Peltier case, has stated: “The FBI’s opposition to the release of Leonard Peltier is driven by vindictiveness and misplaced loyalties.” In a recent letter sent to Biden appealing for Peltier’s release, Rowley wrote: “Retribution seems to have emerged as the primary if not sole reason for continuing what looks from the outside to have become an emotion-driven ‘FBI Family’ vendetta.”

According to the Department of Justice, Peltier’s crime, and the parole board’s rationale for keeping him locked up, is that he aided and abetted the murder of two FBI agents. Yet the two people he is accused of aiding and abetting – Dino Butler and Bob Robideau – were acquitted of the murders within months of going to trial in 1976.

In 2022, the UN human rights council’s working group on arbitrary detention issued an opinion outlining the violation of Peltier’s civil rights and calling for his immediate release. Over the years, the late Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and even Pope Francis, have called on the US government to release Peltier.

In mid-December, Biden granted clemency to 1,500 prisoners. A week later, he commuted the sentences of nearly all the country’s death row inmates to life without parole. He may still be considering issuing pre-emptive pardons to those Donald Trump has cast as his enemies to prevent the president-elect from deploying the FBI and Department of Justice to harass or imprison them for purely political reasons.

Joe Biden has shown admirable sensitivity to the plight of Native Americans. He is the first president in history to appoint a Native American to his cabinet. Biden is the only president to have publicly acknowledged the atrocious conditions and abuse of young Native Americans in the US-backed Indian boarding schools – where Leonard Peltier was forcibly sent and mistreated starting when he was just nine years old. Just a few days ago, the president established a pair of national monuments in California honoring two Native American tribes.

Without Biden’s intervention, Peltier will die in prison. Given the shameful history of this case, the long sentence he has already served and the extreme jeopardy of his health, it is time to let Leonard Peltier return home to his people and die in peace. Biden has the opportunity to place the US on the side of mercy and justice, not further retribution.

If Biden commutes Peltier’s sentence, he will be hailed around the world – by heads of state and advocates alike – for matching America’s vaunted adherence to human rights with action at home.

Joe Biden has a chance to take a big step toward healing the wounds of Native Americans. We urge him to seize this opportunity and by doing so distinguish himself as one of modern history’s most compassionate and just American presidents.

Rose Styron is a poet and longtime human rights activist with Amnesty International. Alex Matthiessen is an environmental advocate and former Clinton administration political appointee. His father, Peter Matthiessen, wrote the definitive account of the Peltier case, In the Spirit of Crazy Horse

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