Leonard Peltier, Native American activist imprisoned for almost 50 years, denied parole request

The federal Parole Fee has denied Leonard Peltier’s bid for parole, his lawyer mentioned Tuesday, one other setback in liberating the ailing Indigenous rights activist who has lengthy maintained his innocence within the killing of two FBI brokers nearly 50 years in the past.

Peltier, 79, made a case for parole based mostly on a number of components, together with his age, nonviolent file in jail and declining well being, which has been affected by diabetes, hypertension, partial blindness from a stroke and bouts of Covid.

Forward of Peltier’s June 10 listening to, his lawyer, Kevin Sharp, had acknowledged that the request was “most likely his final likelihood” to make a case for parole since Peltier’s final full listening to was 15 years in the past. Sharp mentioned Tuesday that an interim listening to about Peltier’s parole standing has been set for 2026 with a full listening to scheduled for June 2039, when he can be 94.

He added that the fee advisable the federal Bureau of Prisons evaluate Peltier’s medical information and assess whether or not he ought to be transferred to a medical facility the company operates.

Sharp plans to enchantment the fee’s resolution.

“Right this moment’s announcement continues the injustice of this lengthy ordeal for Leonard Peltier,” Sharp mentioned. “This resolution is a missed alternative for the US to lastly acknowledge the misconduct of the FBI and ship a message to Indian Nation concerning the impacts of the federal authorities’s actions and insurance policies of the Seventies.”

Whereas Peltier’s case has drawn help from outstanding human rights teams, religion leaders and congressional lawmakers over the many years, his requests for each parole and presidential clemency have been an extended shot in getting launched early from jail, given the circumstances of the crime and the staunch opposition from regulation enforcement officers.

Peltier is serving two consecutive life sentences at a federal jail in Florida for the deadly shootings of FBI brokers Jack Coler and Ron Williams. He stays eligible for parole as a result of he was convicted of his crime earlier than November 1987, when new sentencing tips went into impact.

FBI Director Christopher Wray praised the Parole Fee’s resolution, saying in an announcement Tuesday that Peltier “has been afforded his rights and due course of again and again, and repeatedly, the burden of the proof has supported his conviction and his life sentence.”

Natalie Bara, president of the FBI Brokers Affiliation, which advocates for energetic and retired brokers, additionally applauded the Parole Fee’s resolution.

“Activists sympathetic to Peltier tried to mislead the Fee and the general public to safe launch of this unremorseful assassin of FBI Particular Brokers Jack Coler and Ronald Williams,” Bara mentioned in an announcement, including that the affiliation “will proceed to counter these efforts, and we stand with all the FBI household in our dedication to make sure that Peltier serves his full sentence.”

However there has lengthy been scrutiny surrounding how Peltier’s case was investigated and his trial performed.

On June 26, 1975, Coler and Williams have been on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota to arrest a person on a federal warrant in reference to the theft of cowboy boots, in line with the agency’s investigative files.

Whereas there, the brokers radioed that they’d come underneath hearth in a shootout that lasted 10 minutes, the FBI mentioned. Each males have been fatally shot at shut vary. In keeping with the officers, Peltier — a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians after which an activist with the American Indian Movement, a grassroots Indigenous rights group — was recognized as the one individual on the reservation in possession of the kind of weapon that would hearth the kind of bullet that killed the brokers.

However dozens of individuals had participated within the gunfight; at trial, two co-defendants have been acquitted after they claimed self-defense. When Peltier was tried individually in 1977, no witnesses have been offered who might determine him because the shooter, and unknown to his protection attorneys on the time, the federal authorities had withheld a ballistics report indicating the deadly bullets did not come from his weapon, in line with court documents filed by Peltier on enchantment.

However the FBI has maintained his conviction was “rightly and pretty obtained” and “has withstood quite a few appeals to a number of courts, together with the U.S. Supreme Courtroom.”

Native American rights teams and tribal leaders say Peltier’s conviction was emblematic of the wrestle between Native People and the federal authorities, notably on Indigenous lands, and the occasions at Pine Ridge have lengthy rankled Indigenous activists who say the killing of a Native American man within the shootout with the federal brokers was by no means formally investigated.

Nick Tilsen, president and CEO of NDN Collective, an Indigenous-led advocacy group, mentioned Peltier’s newest denial for parole represents a “unhappy day for Indigenous Peoples and justice in every single place.”

“Whereas we’re heartbroken by the parole fee’s resolution,” he mentioned in an announcement, “our work to make sure that Leonard will obtain justice and freedom will proceed with renewed dedication.”