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Biden commutes life sentence of Leonard Peltier
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2025/01/20/statement-from-president-joe-biden-16/Leonard Peltier
The President is commuting the life sentence imposed on Leonard Peltier so that he serves the remainder of his sentence in home confinement. He is 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.
Mr. Peltier is a Native American activist who is currently serving life in prison for killing two FBI agents on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and escaping from federal prison. Tribal Nations, Nobel Peace laureates, former law enforcement officials (including the former U.S. Attorney whose office oversaw Mr. Peltier’s prosecution and appeal), dozens of lawmakers, and human rights organizations strongly support granting Mr. Peltier clemency, citing his advanced age, illnesses, his close ties to and leadership in the Native American community, and the substantial length of time he has already spent in prison.
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GreenWave
(12,606 posts)
Ocelot II
(130,304 posts)
Biophilic
(6,528 posts)
Wiz Imp
(9,830 posts)
TexasBushwhacker
(21,191 posts)
LuvLoogie
(8,783 posts)
sinkingfeeling
(57,736 posts)
unweird
(3,291 posts)About damn time.
LearnedHand
(5,381 posts)I'm overjoyed to see this!
Rastapopoulos
(745 posts)
Bayard
(29,466 posts)I'm just sorry that Leonard has wrongly spent 50 years in prison. He comes out a broken man, but I'm sure he and his family are celebrating. Crying with happiness here.
This makes me respect President Biden as much as anything else.
underpants
(196,202 posts)
NameAlreadyTaken
(2,295 posts)
CountAllVotes
(22,192 posts)Great news for Leonard Peltier! YES! 
& recommend!
cbabe
(6,580 posts)mountain grammy
(28,979 posts)
1WorldHope
(2,030 posts)Thank you Joe Biden! I'd do cartwheels if I could!
wendyb-NC
(4,668 posts)
G_j
(40,567 posts)about this. Never thought it would happen.
Thank you Joe!!!!
Happy Hoosier
(9,522 posts)Leonard was wrongfully convicted.
LT Barclay
(3,179 posts)Hopefully the professor is still around to help celebrate.
nolabear
(43,850 posts)I'm heartbroken that it took so long. But he gets to go home at last.
Thank you, President Biden. Thank you, Joe.
4catsmom
(667 posts)I will soooo miss you Joe
blogslug
(39,148 posts)Because those fuckers already took down the page on the White House website:
https://apnews.com/article/leonard-peltier-biden-pardons-eba525b713f2ec739b84aa4426366775
Peltier was denied parole as recently as July and wasn’t eligible for parole again until 2026. He was serving life in prison for the deaths of the agents during a standoff on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. He will transition to home confinement, Biden said in a statement.
Biden has set the presidential record for most individual pardons and commutations issued. He announced on Friday that he was commuting the sentences of almost 2,500 people convicted of nonviolent drug offenses. He also gave a broad pardon for his son Hunter, who was prosecuted for gun and tax crimes. On Monday, Biden also pardoned Gerald Lundergan, a Democratic politician from Kentucky who served in the state House of Representatives. He was convicted of illegal campaign contributions to his daughter’s failed U.S. Senate campaign. Ernest William Cromartie, a former Columbia, South Carolina, city council member who was convicted of tax evasion, also was pardoned.
The fight for Peltier’s freedom is entangled with the Indigenous rights movements. Nearly half a century later, his name remains a rallying cry...
LymphocyteLover
(9,760 posts)
Joinfortmill
(20,983 posts)
Donkees
(33,648 posts)
et tu
(2,387 posts)
niyad
(131,925 posts)highplainsdem
(61,713 posts)
PhilG
(53 posts)This is great news. I'd written a few emails to President Biden and others in the hopes that this would happen but feared it was no longer possible.
Note: link no longer works as it now is all "you know who" 
KS Toronado
(23,726 posts)
calimary
(89,845 posts)I started noticing that expired-website labeling popping up in a few places by late yesterday. Looked up my now-former Rep. Chavez-DeRemer and got nothing. Like she never even existed.
Of course, if she makes it to Labor Secretary, we’ll be seeing and hearing WAAAAAAAY more than we may ever have wanted to. She wasn’t exactly a frequent communicator during her single term in Congress, although she did seem to enjoy getting her picture taken with groups of handsome firefighters.
But good riddance. We’ve got a Democrat back in that job now, and she’s well-known from four terms in the state legislature. We’ll have MUCH better representation from Janelle Bynum.
WiVoter
(1,601 posts)❤️
ultralite001
(2,527 posts)Go in peace, gentlemen...
Thank you, Joe...
niyad
(131,925 posts)drag it out?
Kashkakat v.2.0
(1,940 posts)He is out of jail but not pardoned. Maybe someday it will be recognized that from their point of view he and others were in a wartime situation and some degree of foregiveness can be accorded .
LoisB
(12,884 posts)brakester
(586 posts)And, he should have been pardoned!
moniss
(9,011 posts)
Kali999
(289 posts)about this. Really happy to see this finally
spanone
(141,420 posts)IrishBubbaLiberal
(2,561 posts)Good. Finally!
It should have been without house restrictions,
But thankfully Biden did the right thing.
I knew AIM Clyde Bellevourt,, AIM co-founder,
Sadly Clyde died a couple years ago.
Clyde
KS Toronado
(23,726 posts)and if they do will it be in a negative light? Think I''ll record Hannity tonight. 
Hassler
(4,904 posts)calimary
(89,845 posts)I’d worried that it wouldn’t happen for him. I’m glad it did.
Another hearty “Thank You!” to Joe Biden. I’m starting to think he’ll wind up being my all-time favorite President.
A genuinely kind and compassionate man. And he’s handed off a healed and newly reinvigorated country to that Orange Thing. Wonder how soon that noble gift will be completely torn up and shat upon?
librechik
(30,957 posts)That is wonderful news. Late but welcome. Thanks President Biden!
soldierant
(9,323 posts)I have signed so many petitions to so many Presidents on this, including to Joe. One of the most recent ones was in the form of an editable letter, and I added a paragraph something like "This is such a no-brainer, and so unlike you, I cannot hlep but wonder whether you are even seeing or being told of all these petitions, not to mention calls from religious leaders and Nobel Prize winners." I doubt it helped, but I had to say it.
Now I need to go cry some golden tears.
Clouds Passing
(7,877 posts)And possibly Deb Haaland 😇
ShazamIam
(3,101 posts)
ribrepin
(1,897 posts)
Pinback
(13,583 posts)Last edited Tue Jan 21, 2025, 01:53 PM - Edit history (1)
"So, it's real? It's real?"Leonard Peltier responds with disbelief in learning he would finally be able to leave prison after nearly 50 years
- Stewart Huntington, ICT News: https://ictnews.org/
“We were listening to Sundance music and we were smudging and we were praying,” Tilsen, Oglala Lakota, the founder and chief executive of the NDN Collective advocacy organization, told ICT.
But time was running out on Monday, Jan. 20, as they watched the White House Briefing Room website for any word that outgoing President Joe Biden would grant clemency to Native activist Leonard Peltier, who has been behind bars for nearly 50 years.
“I think I have PTSD from hitting refresh over and over,” said Cook Macarro, Red Lake Band of Ojibwe, who oversees government affairs for NDN Collective. “It was really very long, maybe the longest day of my life.”
(SNIP)
The story goes on to outline the details of Peltier’s case and the decades-long effort to get him released, and continues…
“It was surreal,” said Tilsen, who remembered organizing rallies to free Peltier as a teenager in Rapid City, South Dakota. “To get to this point where this could happen … It's hard to believe. … I immediately imagined Leonard coming back to his homelands because that's the same thing that any Indian person has ever wanted to do — is to go home.”
And then the phone rang.
“He called at 12:46,” Macarro said. “Which was almost exactly one hour after the grant of clemency had been announced on the White House website. So he had no idea … He said he'd been awake all night awaiting news. And so he said, ‘Well, you know, did it happen?’”
He was nervous, but he’d been through this before, without success.
“We were able to tell him that, yes, President Biden had commuted his sentence and he would serve out the remainder of his sentence under home confinement at the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation,” she said.
“He said, ‘So it's real? So it's real?’” said Macarro, “He asked us that a couple of times. We said, ‘No, it's real.’ … It is pure joy and love and celebration today for us. And I know we share that with so much of Indian Country.”
AP News quoted Peltier’s lawyer as saying that his release date has been tentatively set for Feb. 18. Peltier will live in a home provided for him by The Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa (his tribe) on the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation in Belcourt, ND, according to his son. Note: There is a website for The Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa at https://tmchippewa.com/, but I did not see any information about the Peltier release there yet.
More from Nick Tilsen:
“And so, when you look at Leonard Peltier, one of the realities is every Indigenous person sees a little bit about themselves in Leonard Peltier and Leonard Peltier’s struggle,” Tilsen said. “Because all of us have experienced injustices at the hands of the United States government. That's why the context of this moment is so huge.”
Full story and more at Indian Country Today News: https://ictnews.org/news/so-its-real-its-real
Polybius
(21,834 posts)Why not? It's not immediate?
Pinback
(13,583 posts)From Biden commutes sentence for Indigenous activist Leonard Peltier, convicted in killing of FBI agents, APNews.com, Jan. 20, 2025 —
“It means my dad finally gets to go home,” Peltier said. “One of the biggest rights violation cases in history and one of the longest-held political prisoners in the United States. And he gets to go home finally. Man, I can’t explain how I feel.”
Peltier’s tribe, the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, has a home ready for him on the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation in Belcourt, North Dakota, his son said.
Bureau of Prisons spokesperson Emery Nelson said Peltier remained incarcerated Monday at USP Coleman, a high-security prison in Florida. Peltier’s lawyer said his release date was tentatively set for Feb. 18.
More at link: https://apnews.com/article/leonard-peltier-biden-pardons-eba525b713f2ec739b84aa4426366775
yorkster
(3,793 posts)May his return home happen soon.