Peltier, Leonard

Leonard Peltier (born September 12, 1944) is a Native American activist and member of the American Indian Movement (AIM) who was convicted of murdering two Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents in a June 26, 1975, shooting on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, which he denies. He was sentenced to two consecutive terms of life imprisonment. Peltier became eligible for parole in 1993. On January 19, 2025, Peltier's sentence was commuted to indefinite house arrest by President Joe Biden shortly before he left office. On February 18, the date specified by the grant of clemency, Peltier was released and transferred. In his 1999 memoir Prison Writings: My Life Is My Sun Dance, Peltier admitted to participating in the shootout but said he did not kill the FBI agents. However, witnesses say he confessed, including Darlene Ka-Mook Nichols who testified against him at trial. Human rights watchdogs, such as Amnesty International, and political figures including Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa, and the 14th Dalai Lama, campaigned for clemency for Peltier. At the time of the shootout, Peltier was an active member of AIM, an Indigenous rights advocacy group that worked to combat the racism and police brutality experienced by Native Americans. Peltier ran for president of the United States in 2004, winning the nomination of the Peace and Freedom Party, and receiving 27,607 votes, limited to the ballot in California. Years later, in 2020, he ran for vice president of the United States on the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) ticket with Gloria La Riva as the presidential candidate, as well as tickets for other left-wing parties and on the ballot of the Peace and Freedom Party. For health reasons, Peltier withdrew from those tickets on August 1, 2020.