A Native American activist convicted of killing two federal agents nearly 50 years ago has again been denied parole, the U.S. Parole Commission announced Tuesday. The decision came despite decades of complaints from supporters that the activist, Leonard Peltier, was denied a fair trial and wrongfully convicted.
Mr. Peltier, 79, was serving two life sentences for his role in a 1975 shootout between activists and FBI agents on the Pine Ridge Reservation that left two agents and an activist dead. His health has deteriorated sharply in recent years, after multiple bouts of Covid-19, a stroke and an aortic aneurysm.
Mr. Peltier’s supporters — who over the years have included members of Congress, the Dalai Lama, Nelson Mandela, former prosecutors and the judge who originally convicted him — say FBI agents coerced witnesses in the case and prosecutors suppressed evidence that would have exonerated them.
“Of course they deserve justice,” James Mazzola, deputy director of research at Amnesty International USA, said of the families of the federal agents who were killed. But keeping Mr. Peltier in prison, he said, “is not justice.”
Supporters of Mr Peltier have repeatedly tried over the years to secure his release through parole, a presidential pardon or a reduced sentence.
In a 2022 letter to the Justice Department, FBI Director Christopher Wray strongly opposed granting Mr. Peltier a pardon.
“Peltier is a ruthless killer who brutally murdered two of our own — Special Agents Jack R. Coler and Ronald Williams,” Mr. Wray wrote. “Reducing Peltier’s sentence is utterly unwarranted. It ‘would be devastating’ to the victims’ families and an affront to the rule of law,” the director wrote, citing a letter from a relative of Mr. Coler.
Mr Peltier has admitted his involvement in the 1975 shooting, but has maintained that he acted in self-defence and did not kill the officers.
Of the more than 30 people present during the shooting, Mr. Peltier was the only one convicted of a crime for his role. Two other Native American activists were tried for murder but were acquitted. Exonerating evidence that was admitted in their trials was excluded from Mr. Peltier’s, which his supporters cite as a way in which his trial was unfair.
His conviction hinges on the fact that he was armed and present at the shooting that day, James Reynolds, a former U.S. prosecutor in Iowa, said in a 2022 interview. Mr. Reynolds, whose predecessor, Evan Hultman, handled the original prosecution of Mr. Peltier, said there was no evidence linking Mr. Peltier to the fatal shots.
The parole board held a hearing on June 10 on Mr. Peltier’s latest application to the Coleman Federal Correctional Complex in Florida. Kevin Sharp, Mr. Peltier’s attorney and a former federal judge, said the hearing proceeded much the same as previous hearings.
Among those present were relatives of the two deceased officers, a representative of the FBI and a doctor who testified about Mr. Peltier’s declining health.
Steven Van Zandt, the guitarist for Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, has been a longtime supporter of Mr. Peltier and was scheduled to testify at the June 10 hearing until the parole board limited the number of witnesses who could appear.
The FBI’s handling of Mr. Peltier’s case was “really, really disturbing,” Mr. Van Zandt said in an interview, “and I think it damages the credibility of the FBI to even try to defend this case.”
The FBI did not respond to a request for comment.
Mr. Van Zandt said that denying Mr. Peltier parole, before the board’s decision was announced, “would be the final terrible chapter in one of the worst, most terrible chapters in American history.”
