The wisdom of Biden’s releasing Leonard Peltier from federal prison without a pardon
By Herbert Rothschild
Akira Kurosawa’s 1950 film “Rashomon” earned worldwide acclaim for its revolutionary handling of storytelling as well as its cinematography. It was a landmark in cinema storytelling. It presents four different accounts of the murder of a samurai and the possible rape of his wife. Each account differs radically from the others, highlighting the unreliability of narratives and the subjectivity of truth.
The presumption of a criminal trial is that those obstacles to determining what really happened in a human event are addressed and overcome and a just verdict is reached. Would that it were so! The outcome is conditioned on such things as what the judge allows to be introduced as evidence, which witness accounts a jury believes, and the biases of the jury members. Those are problems inherent in every trial. Then there is actual misconduct, such as lying on the stand and failure of the prosecution to hand over exculpatory evidence to the defense.
One of President Joe Biden’s last official acts was to release Native American Leonard Peltier from federal prison and allow him to serve out the remainder of his two consecutive life sentences for murder on the Turtle Mountain Reservation (Chippewa) in North Dakota. Explaining the release, the Biden White House said that Peltier “now 80 years old, suffers from severe health ailments and has spent the majority of his life (nearly half a century) in prison. This commutation will enable Mr. Peltier to spend his remaining days in home confinement but will not pardon him for his underlying crimes.”
Peltier’s case has been a cause celebre for decades. His advocates have included Nobel Peace Prize laureates Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Rigoberta Menchú; Harry Belafonte, Robert Redford and Willie Nelson; and indigenous leaders Deb Haaland and Winona LaDuke, daughter of Ashland artist and activist Betty LaDuke. The European Parliament passed resolutions in 1994 and 1999 calling for Peltier’s release.
In the early years after Peltier’s trial in 1977, the claim was that he was unjustly convicted. Later, it was that he had served more than sufficient time even if guilty. For example, the following was Amnesty International USA’s recent message urging us to ask President Biden to release Peltier: “Amnesty International does not take a position on whether Leonard Peltier is innocent or guilty. Amnesty International’s position is that, given the totality of the circumstances, including the serious concerns about the fairness of the trial and legal process leading to Leonard Peltier’s conviction, his time served and serious health concerns, that the interests of justice are best served by clemency and his release.”
The FBI will have none of this. It opposed Peltier’s release at all his parole hearings and pressured sitting presidents not to pardon him or commute his sentences. Biden acted over the vehement objection of his own FBI director, Christopher Wray, who wrote to Biden that Peltier is “a remorseless killer” and argued that “any relief from his conviction or sentence is wholly unjustified and would be an affront to the rule of law.”
The FBI’s enduring animus against Peltier stemmed from the death of two of its agents, Jack Coler and Ronald Williams, in a shootout with Peltier and several other men on the Pine Ridge Reservation on June 26, 1975. Forensic evidence showed that after the agents were wounded and lying on the ground, they were both shot in the head at close range before other agents could reach them. The FBI was, and remains, convinced that Peltier fired the fatal shots. It maintains a website where its version of events that day and the trial and its aftermath are posted, including detailed rebuttals of claims about improper prosecutorial conduct. Anyone interested in the case should read the FBI’s side of it.
I confess that, when I contacted President Bill Clinton at the end of his second term and urged him to pardon Peltier, I had not read that version. I trusted what the Native American and the justice organizations championing Peltier were telling me. Nor do I now think that what they said wasn’t true. As they contended, there were problems with the prosecution, especially about the ballistic evidence that the fatal shots came from Peltier’s weapon. Peltier never denied that he was involved in the shootout with Coler and Williams, but he said did not fire those shots.
Further, the trial judge didn’t allow the defense team to introduce any testimony about FBI activity on the Pine Ridge reservation, which had experienced several years of turmoil and violence. Tellingly, when Dino Butler and Bob Robideau, two other defendants in the case, were tried earlier and separately in a different venue, the trial judge allowed such testimony. Apparently, it bolstered the defendants’ argument of self-defense, because the jury acquitted them.
Even though I never read anything from Peltier’s advocates that I’ve subsequently found false, still, they didn’t offer a narrative of what transpired complete enough to explain why the FBI was so opposed to any form of clemency. What I think I know now, while hardly the entire truth, has led me to believe that the limited freedom Biden gave Peltier was as wise as it was merciful. Peltier’s strongest advocates were disappointed that Biden didn’t go further. But now the unnecessary deaths of agents Coler and Williams also make a claim on my sympathies, as they always did on the sympathies of their colleagues in the FBI.
Herbert Rothschild’s columns appear Fridays. Opinions expressed in them represent the author’s views. Email Rothschild at herbertrothschild6839@gmail.com.
