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...
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...
Addressing the inequities of the criminal justice system, President Obama on Monday commuted the sentences of 46 federal prisoners who had been convicted of drug offenses. “The overwhelming majority had been sentenced to at least 20 years – 14 of them had been...