Biden Grants Clemency For Leonard Peltier
The news that Native American rights activist Leonard Peltier received clemency by outgoing President Biden on Monday, Jan. 20, was welcomed news for many Native Americans in the nation and Montana.
Wolf Point’s Lance Fourstar is the director of the Montana American Indian Caucus at the Montana State Legislature was thankful about the announcement.
“I think President Biden on the last hour and last minute, granting executive clemency to Leonard Peltier to serve the remaining of his time in home confinement is a compromise between pardoning him and keeping him as a ward of the Bureau of Federal Prisons,” Fourstar said.
Peltier, 80, has been in prison for nearly 50 years after being convicted of killing two FBI agents on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and escaping from federal prison.
“His release to home confinement is a victory for many, many, many Native Americans,” Fourstar said. “I believe he is the Nelson Mandela for Native Americans.”
Four Star feels that Peltier didn’t kill the FBI agents and that he has been wrongfully imprisoned for almost five decades. “He was wrongfully imprisoned, I believe, and has been serving for too long,” Fourstar added. Peltier, who was denied parole last year, has maintained his innocence in the shooting deaths that occurred on June 26, 1975, in South Dakota. He was raised among the Turtle Mountain Chippewa and Fort Totten Sioux Nations of North Dakota.
Peltier was an active member of American Indian Movement, an indigenous rights advocacy group. He ran for president of the United State in 2004 as the nominee of the Peace and Freedom Party. In 2020, he was the vice president candidate for the Party for Socialism and Liberation.
