The Federal Parole Commission has denied Leonard Peltier’s request for parole, his lawyer said Tuesday, another setback in the release of the ailing indigenous rights activist who has long maintained his innocence in the murder of two FBI agents nearly 50 years ago. years.
Peltier, 79, applied for parole based on several factors, including his age, non-violent prison record and declining health, which has been affected by diabetes, high blood pressure, partial blindness due to a stroke and bouts of Covid.
Before Peltier’s June 10 hearing, his attorney, Kevin Sharp, acknowledged that the request was “probably his last chance” to seek parole, as Peltier’s last full hearing was 15 years ago. Sharp said Tuesday that an interim hearing on Peltier’s parole status has been set for 2026, with a full hearing scheduled for June 2039, when he would be 94 years old.
He added that the commission recommended that the Federal Bureau of Prisons review Peltier’s medical records and evaluate whether he should be transferred to a medical center operated by the agency.
Although Peltier’s case has drawn support from prominent human rights groups, religious leaders and congressional lawmakers over the decades, his calls for parole and presidential clemency have been a long shot for his early release from prison. given the circumstances of the crime and the strong opposition from law enforcement.
Peltier is serving two consecutive life sentences in a federal prison in Florida for the fatal murders of FBI agents Jack Coler and Ron Williams. He remains eligible for parole because he was convicted of his crime before November 1987, when the new sentencing guidelines took effect.
Natalie Bara, president of the FBI Agents Association, which advocates for active and retired agents, said the Parole Commission made the right decision.
“Activists sympathetic to Peltier attempted to mislead the Commission and the public into securing the release of this remorseless killer of FBI Special Agents Jack Coler and Ronald Williams,” Bara said in a statement, adding that the association “will continue to fight these efforts, and we support the entire FBI family in our determination to ensure that Peltier serves his full sentence.”
But the way Peltier’s case was investigated and how his trial was conducted has long been debated.
On June 26, 1975, Coler and Williams were on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota to arrest a man on a federal warrant in connection with the theft of cowboy boots, according to the agency investigative files.
While there, the agents radioed that they had been attacked in a shootout that lasted 10 minutes, the FBI said. The two men were shot dead at close range. According to authorities, Peltier – a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians and later a American Indian Movementa grassroots indigenous rights group – was identified as the only person on the reservation who owned the type of weapon that could fire the type of bullet that killed the agents.
But dozens of people participated in the shooting; at trial, two co-defendants were acquitted after claiming self-defense. When Peltier was tried separately in 1977, no witnesses were presented who could identify him as the shooter, and, unbeknownst to his defense attorneys at the time, the federal government withheld a ballistics report indicating that the fatal bullets did not come from his weapon, according to court documents filed by Peltier on appeal.
But the FBI said his conviction was “correctly and fairly obtained” and “withstood numerous appeals to various courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court.”
Native American rights groups and tribal leaders say Peltier’s conviction was emblematic of the struggle between Native Americans and the federal government, especially on Indian lands, and the events at Pine Ridge have long angered Native American activists who say the murder of a Native American man in the shootout with federal agents was never formally investigated.
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