Biden pardons activist Leonard Peltier so he can serve his life sentence at home

Minutes before leaving office, US President Joe Biden commuted the life sentence of local activist Leonard Peltier, who was convicted in the 1975 murders of two FBI agents.

Peltier was denied parole in July and is not up for parole again until 2026. He was serving a life sentence for the death of agents during a standoff on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.

Biden said in a statement that he will be placed under house arrest.

Biden set the presidential record for the most individual pardons and compensations granted. On Friday, he announced that he was commuting the sentences of nearly 2,500 people convicted of nonviolent drug crimes. He also issued a broad pardon for his son Hunter, who was convicted of gun and tax crimes.

On Monday, Biden also pardoned Democratic politician Gerald Lundergan of Kentucky. He was convicted of illegal campaign contributions to his daughter’s failed US Senate campaign. Ernest William Cromartie, a former Columbia, South Carolina city councilman convicted of tax evasion, was also pardoned.

The fight for Peltier’s freedom was intertwined with local rights movements. Almost half a century later, his name remains the voice of the people.

A member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa in North Dakota, Peltier was active in the American Indian Movement, which began in Minneapolis in the 1960s as a grassroots organization fighting issues of police brutality and discrimination against Native Americans. It quickly became a national power.

The movement made headlines in 1973 when it seized the village of Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge Reservation, leading to a 71-day standoff with federal agents. Tensions between the movement and the government remained high for years.

On June 26, 1975, agents went to Pine Ridge to issue arrest warrants in the fight for treaty rights and self-determination.

According to the FBI, agents Jack Kohler and Ronald Williams, who were injured during the shootout, were shot in the head at close range. Joseph Stuntz, a member of the American Indian Movement, was also killed in the shooting.

Two other members of the movement, Robert Robideau and Dino Butler, were found guilty of murdering Coler and Williams.

After fleeing to Canada and being extradited to the United States, Peltier was charged with two counts of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison in 1977, despite defense claims that the evidence against him had been tampered with.

Last year, the Assembly of First Nations revoked 37 years of support for Peltier, allowing him to question slain activist Anna Mae Pictou Aguash, a Mi’kmaw woman from Nova Scotia.