Indigenous activist Leonard Peltier was released from a Florida prison Tuesday morning after former President Joe Biden commuted his life sentence for the 1975 killings of two FBI agents, a decision that elated Peltier’s supporters while angering law enforcement officials who believe in his guilt.
For nearly half a century, Peltier’s imprisonment has symbolized systemic injustice for Native Americans across the country who believe in his innocence. The decision to release the 80-year-old to home confinement was celebrated by supporters.
Peltier was denied parole as recently as last July and wasn’t eligible for parole again until 2026.
“He represents every person who’s been roughed up by a cop, profiled, had their children harassed at school,” said Nick Estes, a professor of American Indian Studies at the University of Minnesota and a member of the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe who has advocated for Peltier’s release.
But the last-minute move as Biden was leaving office also prompted criticism from those who say Peltier is guilty, including former FBI Director Christopher Wray, who called him “a remorseless killer” in a private letter to Biden obtained by The Associated Press.
“Granting Peltier any relief from his conviction or sentence is wholly unjustified and would be an affront to the rule of law,” Wray wrote.
The commutation was not a pardon for crimes committed, something Peltier’s advocates have hoped for since he has always maintained his innocence.
A group of supporters gathered outside the Coleman federal prison Tuesday morning in anticipation of Peltier’s release. One of his attorneys, Jenipher Jones said Peltier was looking forward to going home.
“We’re so excited for this moment,” Jones said. “He is in good spirits. He has the soul of a warrior.”
After being released from USP Coleman, a high-security prison, Peltier planned to return to North Dakota, where a celebration was planned Wednesday with family and friends.
Biden commuted Peltier’s sentence Jan. 20, noting he had spent most of his life in prison and was now in ill health.
“We never thought he would get out,” Ray St. Clair, a member of the White Earth Band of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, said shortly before Peltier’s release. “It shows you should never give up hope. We can take this repairing the damage that was done. This is a start.”
Peltier, an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa in North Dakota, was active in the American Indian Movement, which beginning in the 1960s fought for Native American treaty rights and tribal self-determination.
The group grabbed headlines in 1969, when activists occupied the former prison island of Alcatraz in the San Francisco Bay, and again in 1972, when they presented presidential candidates with a list of demands including the restoration of tribal land. After they were ignored, they seized the headquarters of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
From then on the group was subject to FBI surveillance and harassment under a covert program that sought to disrupt activism and was exposed in 1975.
Peltier’s conviction stemmed from a confrontation that same year on the Oglala Sioux Indian Reservation in Pine Ridge, South Dakota, in which FBI agents Jack Coler and Ronald Williams were killed. According to the FBI, the agents were there to serve arrest warrants for robbery and assault with a dangerous weapon.
Prosecutors maintained at trial that Peltier shot both agents in the head at point-blank range. Peltier acknowledged being present and firing a gun at a distance, but said he fired in self-defense. A woman who claimed to have seen Peltier shoot the agents later recanted her testimony, saying it had been coerced.
He was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder and given two consecutive life sentences.
Two other movement members, co-defendants Robert Robideau and Dino Butler, were acquitted on the grounds of self-defense.
“Leonard Peltier’s release is the right thing to do given the serious and ongoing human rights concerns about the fairness of his trial, his nearly 50 years behind bars, his health and his age,” said Paul O’Brien, executive director with Amnesty International USA in a statement. “While we welcome his release from prison, he should not be restricted to home confinement.”
Prominent Native American groups like the National Congress of the American Indian have called for Peltier’s release for decades, and Amnesty International considered him a political prisoner. Prominent supporters included South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, civil rights icon Coretta Scott King, actor and director Robert Redford and musicians Pete Seeger, Harry Belafonte and Jackson Browne.
The fight for Peltier’s freedom is entangled with the Indigenous rights movements. Nearly half a century later, his name remains a rallying cry.
“President Biden took an enormous step toward healing and reconciliation with the Native American people in this country,” Peltier’s former attorney Kevin Sharp said in a statement in January, following Biden’s decision. “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.”
Former Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, a member of the Pueblo of Laguna and the first Native American to hold the secretary’s position, praised Biden’s decision.
“I am grateful that Leonard can now go home to his family,” she said Jan. 20 in a post on the social platform X. “I applaud President Biden for this action and understanding what this means to Indian Country.”
As a young child, Peltier was taken from his family and sent to a boarding school. Thousands of Indigenous children over decades faced the same fate, and were in many cases subjected to systemic physical, psychological and sexual abuse.
“He hasn’t really had a home since he was taken away to boarding school,” said Nick Tilsen, who has been advocating for Peltier’s release since he was a teen and is CEO of NDN Collective, an Indigenous-led advocacy group based in South Dakota. “So he is excited to be at home and paint and have grandkids running around.”
