When I left my job after 28 years as a federal prosecutor to volunteer on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, I was warned by a friend in the community, “do yourself a favor, never state an opinion about Leonard Peltier.” We both assumed I would oppose...
…I can say this much based on the evidence used to convict Peltier: that is only to say that it falls far short of establishing guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. The thin shred of evidence upon which his conviction rode was (at best) circumstantial. It put him...
Leonard Peltier is a Native American hero whom the American government has kept locked up for almost 40 years, much of it in solitary confinement. Peltier was jailed for murder after two FBI agents were killed on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota in...
President Obama’s recent statements about mass incarceration, together with his decision to commute the sentences of 46 people serving lengthy and life sentences in federal prison on drug charges, treat “nonviolent drug offenders” as the symbolic...
E.L. Doctorow, an author of award-winning novels, has died at 84. Leonard Peltier and the International Leonard Peltier Defense Committee wish to extend our condolences to Mr. Doctorow’s family and friends. The author of a dozen novels, three volumes of short...
On Monday, President Obama commuted the sentences of 46 nonviolent drug offenders, citing inequities in our criminal justice system, saying the system can “work smarter and better.” Obama hasn’t issued many pardons during his time in the White House. But his recent...