A father, grandfather and great-grandfather, an artist, and ceremonial Sundance and Čhaŋnúŋpa-Carrier (Pipe-Carrier), Mr. Peltier deserves to spend his elder years with his family following nearly half a century of imprisonment in the custody of the United States.
Mr. Peltier’s conviction must not be divorced from his political activism and leadership. Mr. Peltier was one of the original leaders of the American Indian Movement (AIM). AIM is a prominent Indigenous civil rights organization founded in 1968 and played a pivotal role in raising awareness about issues like land rights, cultural preservation, and social justice. The FBI targeted AIM and leaders like Mr. Peltier as part of the repressive COINTELPRO regime. In 1973, AIM members supported members of Oglala Lakota Nation during the occupation of Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. In the years following the 71-day occupation of Wounded Knee, AIM members and traditional tribal members on Pine Ridge were collectively punished by increased law enforcement surveillance, militarization, murders, assaults, and disappearance pursuant to a counter-insurgery program now known as the “Reign of Terror.” During this period of violent repression, on June 26, 1975, two FBI agents and one Indigenous man were killed during a shootout at the Jumping Bull Ranch that started as an investigation over a stolen pair of cowboy boots. Leonard Peltier and two other AIM members were indicted for the agents’ deaths. Leonard’s co-defendants were allowed to introduce evidence of FBI activities on Pine Ridge during the Reign of Terror and argued self-defense; they were acquitted of the killing of the FBI agents. Once Mr. Peltier was wrongfully extradited and in U.S. custody, he received far different treatment than his co-defendants that includes FBI interference and the exclusion of exculpatory evidence.
The cumulative injustices in the investigation, wrongful extradition, and manipulated trial resulted in the 1977 wrongful conviction of Leonard Peltier for the killing the two FBI agents during the shootout on Pine Ridge.
Mr. Peltier  has spent nearly five decades in prison. Despite his innocence and age, he has now spent more time in a maximum security prison during his lifetime than as a free man. An inordinate amount of that time has been spent on lockdown and in solitary confinement, in an enclosed cell without sunlight which Mr. Peltier once described as “cement steel hotbox.” Mr. Peltier has repeatedly been denied parole due to the political nature of the case and fierce opposition to clemency by the FBI.
Former U.S. Attorney James Reynolds, who supervised the prosecution of Mr. Peltier for the alleged killing of 2 FBI agents on the Pine Ridge Reservation in 1975, has asked for clemency, admitting: “the prosecution and continued incarceration of Mr. Peltier was and is unjust…[we] cannot prove that he committed any offense.” He has further called Leonard’s conviction a product of racial bias and prejudice prevalent in the criminal justice system and a product of the times. His continued incarceration is indicative of the open wounds in Indian Country and for Indigenous Peoples around the world. Peltier is the longest serving political prisoner in the U.S. It is not a coincidence that he is Indigenous.
 
 
 
 
 
 


We participated in “Leonard Peltier’s Walk To Justice” held by the American Indian Movement Grand Governing Council (AIMGGC). Hear from Steven Donziger, WPLC Executive Director Natali Segovia, and #NoDAPL Political Prisoner Michael “Rattler” Markus on why it’s important to support Leonard’s case.