“I know that to watch him die in prison, without clearing his name, would devastate our family even more than the past four decades have.” – Kathy Peltier, writing in Time magazine in August
In August, about the same time that Kathy Peltier was waiting anxiously to hear whether President Barack Obama had added her father’s name to the list of pardons in his last year in office, CBA Council passed a resolution to add its voice to the chorus of those pleading for clemency for a man who has spent 40 years in prison after being convicted on fraudulent evidence.
Leonard Peltier was present when two FBI agents were killed at the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota in 1975. But he was later extradited from Canada and faced murder charges in their killings based on what has been proved to be faulty evidence. And yet he remains in prison, 70 years old and ailing.
In October, CBA President René Basque wrote to Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould asking that the government support Peltier’s application for clemency with U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch. That support should be based, the letter says, on six factors, as follows:
- Canada and Canadian courts based their decision to extradite Peltier on false evidence.
- U.S. prosecutors have said there is no evidence Peltier shot either of the two agents.
- Peltier has been held in maximum security for more than 40 years.
- The work Peltier was doing at the time of the shooting was supported by Indigenous leaders in Canada, and many leaders continue to support his clemency application.
- Peltier is an Amnesty International prisoner of conscience.
- Peltier, now in his 70s and in poor health, would likely not have had to serve such a lengthy sentence in Canada.
Every U.S. president takes the opportunity at the end of his term to bestow gifts of full pardons or of clemency to those whom they consider worthy of a second chance. The CBA asks for the government’s help in persuading Obama that Peltier has done his time, and should be allowed to go home.