Leonard Peltier: Amnesty Int’l Calls on Biden to Free Indigenous Leader “Before It’s Too Late”

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.

President Biden is facing calls to grant clemency to the jailed Native American leader Leonard Peltier. He’s spent nearly half a century in prison for a crime he says he did not commit. Leonard Peltier recently turned 80 years old. He’s always maintained his innocence over the 1975 killing of two FBI agents in a shootout on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. His supporters say his conviction was riddled with irregularities and prosecutorial misconduct.

In a moment, we’ll speak to the head of Amnesty International USA, but first I want to turn to a video Amnesty produced about Peltier’s case. It’s narrated by the actor Peter Coyote.

LEONARD PELTIER: I am everyone who ever died without a voice or a prayer or a hope or a chance.

PETER COYOTE: Leonard Peltier is a Native American activist who has been in prison for more than 46 years, serving two consecutive life terms for a crime he maintains he did not commit. In 1977, he was convicted of killing two FBI agents, Ronald Williams and Jack Coler, during a shootout on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. Peltier was a member of the American Indian Movement, AIM, founded in 1968 during the civil rights movement to advocate for the rights of Native Americans. The murders occurred at a time when AIM supporters and residents of Pine Ridge were being intimidated and killed, allegedly by paramilitaries connected to the government. A climate of fear and terror prevailed. After two AIM members were acquitted of the killings, the FBI coerced witnesses into saying they saw Peltier shoot the agents. Ballistics evidence that could have aided Leonard’s defense was hidden from his lawyers.

LEONARD PELTIER: The only thing I’m guilty of is struggling for my people. I didn’t kill those agents.

PETER COYOTE: It was not a fair trial, the conclusion reached by Federal Appeals Judge Gerald Heaney, who stated “the prosecution withheld evidence” favorable to the defendant, and “the FBI used improper tactics” in extraditing Peltier and, otherwise, in investigating and trying Peltier’s case.

LEONARD PELTIER: I’ll be an old man when I get out, if I get out.

PETER COYOTE: Leonard Peltier has spent more than 46 years in prison, some of which was in solitary confinement. He is now 78 years old and in rapidly declining health. There are concerns that he’s not receiving adequate medical treatment and his condition could be fatal.

BRUCE SMITH: They’re giving him the death penalty by leaving him in that type of an environment. The man needs medical treatment. He needs to have access to medical treatment. If they’re not going to give medical treatment to him, they need to release him as soon as possible.

PETER COYOTE: Amnesty International is calling on President Biden to grant Leonard Peltier clemency before it’s too late. President Biden has a chance to rectify a case that has troubled many people for decades.

AMY GOODMAN: A video produced by Amnesty International about the jailed Indigenous leader Leonard Peltier, who on September 12th turned 80 years old. Peltier’s supporters are hoping President Biden will grant Peltier clemency before he leaves office in January.

Twenty-four years ago, President Clinton faced similar calls. On Election Day 2000, I spoke to Bill Clinton when he called into our Pacifica radio station WBAI to get out the vote. I asked him about Peltier’s case.

AMY GOODMAN: President Clinton, since it’s rare to get you on the phone, let me ask you another question. And that is, what is your position on granting Leonard Peltier, the Native American activist, executive clemency?

PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON: Well, I don’t — I don’t have a position I can announce yet. I think if — I believe there is a new application for him in there. And when I have time, after the election is over, I’m going to review all the remaining executive clemency applications and, you know, see what the merits dictate. I will try to do what I think the right thing to do is based on the evidence.

AMY GOODMAN: That was President Clinton almost a quarter of a century ago. In 2012, I had a chance to speak to Leonard Peltier by phone. At the time, Barack Obama was president.

AMY GOODMAN: Leonard, this is Amy Goodman from Democracy Now! I was —

LEONARD PELTIER: Oh, hi, Amy. How are you?

AMY GOODMAN: Hi. I’m good. I was wondering if you have a message for President Obama.

LEONARD PELTIER: I just hope he can, you know, stop the wars that are going on in this world, and stop getting — killing all those people getting killed, and, you know, give the Black Hills back to my people, and turn me loose.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you share with people at the news conference and with President Obama your case for why you should be — your sentence should be commuted, why you want clemency?

LEONARD PELTIER: Well, I never got a fair trial, for one. They wouldn’t allow me to put up a defense, and manufactured evidence, manufactured witnesses, tortured witnesses. You know, the list is — just goes on. So I think I’m a very good candidate for — after 37 years, for clemency or house arrest, at least.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Leonard Peltier speaking to me in 2012.

We’re joined now by Paul O’Brien, executive director of Amnesty International USA. He recently wrote to President Biden, urging him to take a number of actions before leaving office, including granting clemency to Leonard Peltier.

We’re going to go through your demands, Paul O’Brien. But let’s start with Leonard Peltier, who has been in prison for almost half a century now. Why are you calling for him to be released?

PAUL O’BRIEN: Hi, Amy. And thank you for your steadfast work on Leonard’s case over the decades, like Amnesty. We have been calling on administration after administration to do the right thing by Leonard. He was in hospital in June. He was in hospital again in October. It’s time to give him a chance to spend his last days with his family and with his community. He’s been incarcerated as long as Joe Biden has been in national politics, and we all know how long that is. President Biden only — he doesn’t have to pardon him. He just has to give him clemency, so that he can spend those last days with the right people. And he can send an important signal to the Native American community that will fracture some of the divisions that are still felt over these issues.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Paul, for those people who are not familiar, could you explain the difference between the pardon and clemency?

PAUL O’BRIEN: Well, clemency doesn’t — he doesn’t have to pass a ruling on the actual decision. It simply is an act of compassion by the president to say, “He has served enough time.” As you said on the earlier piece, this has essentially become death penalty through incarceration. And if President Biden, who says he’s opposed to the death penalty, wants to do the right thing by Leonard, he will say, “Fifty years is enough. It’s time to let him spend his last days with his family.”

AMY GOODMAN: Painful to watch — I was just going to say, Juan, it was painful to watch yesterday. I mean, it’s become this tradition over the last few decades for the president — right? — to pardon turkeys. And, yes, President Biden was out pardoning turkeys — I think they were Peach and Blossom — yesterday at the White House, sparing their lives. But talk about the seriousness of this, Paul O’Brien, as you talk about a signal to the Native American community. President Biden just went to Arizona to ask forgiveness for the U.S. history of how they have treated Native Americans in residential schools. Leonard Peltier was in one of those schools.

PAUL O’BRIEN: That’s right. Right now it feels to many of the folks that we’re talking to that the relationship between this administration and Native American leadership is really fractured. And this would send such a positive signal. Some time ago, I stood alongside some of those leaders outside the White House calling for Leonard’s release. Many of us were arrested on that day, and the administration simply refused to hear what these remarkable leaders in the Native American community are saying, which is, “If you want to show that you are genuinely committed to healing this relationship, you will take steps on Leonard’s behalf.” So far, nothing.