Commentary: Leonard Peltier is not a political prisoner and deserves no clemency

Thirty-three members of Congress, including Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Senator Tina Smith (D-Minn.), and Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) are urging Joe Biden to grant clemency to Leonard Peltier, a federal inmate for 46 years.

The signers of the letter claim “a deep commitment to the crucial role we play in upholding justice for all Americans — and to also hold our government accountable when we see a case of injustice, as demonstrated by the long incarceration of Leonard Peltier.”

Yet the letter does not explain why, exactly, Peltier landed in prison nor anything else about him.

Born in 1944, in Grand Forks, North Dakota, of Chippewa and Dakota antecedents, Peltier enlisted in the Marines but was discharged for medical issues. In 1972, in Milwaukee, Peltier pulled a gun on a cop and pulled the trigger, but the gun failed to fire. Peltier got five months in jail and went underground after his release.

In 1974, Peltier was arrested on Mercer Island, Washington, giving the name of Leonard Little. He was charged with possession of illegal weapons, and fugitive alerts described him as “armed and dangerous.” In 1975, Peltier was living on the Pine Ridge reservation and acting as an enforcer for the American Indian Movement, which in 1973 seized the town of Wounded Knee, South Dakota, and held it for 71 days.

On June 26, 1975, FBI agents Ronald Williams and Jack Coler came to Pine Ridge looking for Jimmy Eagle, who was wanted on assault charges. Williams sent a radio report of rifle fire from behind a row of junked cars. The agents were armed only with revolvers. When Coler went to retrieve a rifle from the trunk of his car, bullets blasted through the lid and severely wounded the agent. Coler crawled into the car, which was soon pierced by volleys of gunfire.

Williams was also hit and attempted to surrender. The agent raised a hand and pleaded for his life, but the shooter, later identified as Peltier, fired an AR-15into his hand and then shot him in the head. Peltier also shot Jack Coler in the head, and both men were shot again after they were dead — what police call “overkill.”

In November of that year, Leonard Peltier, James Eagle, Darrell Dean Butler, and Robert Robideau were indicted on two counts of first-degree murder.

On the run, Peltier shot it out with Oregon policemen, who stopped his motor home. Peltier fled to Canada but was eventually extradited. At his 1977 trial in Fargo, North Dakota, a jury took 10 hours to convict Peltier on two counts of murder and sentenced him to two life terms in federal prison. The convicted murderer quickly became a hero to the left, which considered him a political prisoner.

“I stand before you as a proud man. I feel no guilt!” said Peltier said in a pre-sentencing statement. “I have no regrets of being a Native American activist — thousands of people in the United States, Canada, and around the world have and will continue to support me to expose the injustices which have occurred in this courtroom. I do feel pity for your people that they must live under such an ugly system. Under your system, you are taught greed, racism, and corruption — and most serious of all, the destruction of Mother Earth.”

And so on.

Famed left-wing lawyer William Kunstler took up Peltier’s case, and in 1987 the convicted murderer sought asylum in the Soviet Union, claiming there was “no justice for my people” in the United States. Peltier remained a celebrity prisoner, championed by Nelson Mandela, Danielle Mitterrand, and their ilk. Nothing came of the effort, and backers eventually put their hopes in Bill Clinton.

In late 2000, some 500 current and retired FBI agents marched to the White House with banners reading “Never Forget” and bearing a letter opposing clemency for Peltier signed by 8,000 FBI agents. Clinton pardoned Puerto Rican terrorists but not Leonard Peltier. Presidents Bush and Obama also failed to grant clemency to Peltier, but the murderer’s fans now look to Joe Biden.

The FBI “remains resolute against the commutation of Leonard Peltier’s sentence for murdering FBI Special Agents Jack Coler and Ronald Williams at South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in 1975. We must never forget or put aside that Peltier intentionally and mercilessly murdered these two young men and has never expressed remorse for his ruthless actions.”

Biden’s commutations thus far have been mostly for nonviolent drug offenders. Peltier, now 79, committed murder in a deliberate act of gun violence against law enforcement that would now qualify as domestic terrorism. On this “Indigenous Peoples' Day,” the Delaware Democrat has yet to issue a commutation for the convicted murderer of Ron Williams and Jack Coler. Let’s hope he stands with his predecessors and keeps Leonard Peltier locked up — exactly where he belongs.