Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) is urging President Joe Biden to grant clemency to Leonard Peltier, the Native American rights activist who has been in jail for practically 50 years after an extremely flawed trial and no proof that he dedicated a criminal offense.
In a Might 26 letter solely obtained by HuffPost, Hirono mentioned there have been egregious issues with Peltier’s imprisonment from the beginning.
“It's clear that our felony justice failed Mr. Peltier and that FBI coercion, improperly withheld proof, and different constitutional violations led to his unjust conviction,” she informed the president.
“He's now 77 years previous and suffers from various critical medical circumstances,” Hirono mentioned. “Commuting Mr. Peltier’s sentence and releasing him to return to his house and household would lastly appropriate this unjust sentence and finish this grave injustice.”
Right here’s a duplicate of Hirono’s letter:
In case you haven’t heard of Peltier, consider him as America’s longest-serving political prisoner: a fall man the FBI and U.S. lawyer’s workplace desperately wanted after failing to determine who murdered two FBI brokers in a 1975 shootout on Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota.
If in case you have heard of Peltier, then you know the way rather more there may be to this story. The blatant Nineteen Seventies-era racism towards Indigenous individuals. The truth that all of Peltier’s co-defendants had been acquitted primarily based on self-defense. The fact that the FBI was at the least partly answerable for the shootout that day. The U.S. authorities officers who've since admitted how flawed Peltier’s trial was and urged his launch. The many years of outcry from Indigenous leaders, members of Congress, celebrities and human rights leaders together with Pope Francis, the Dalai Lama, Nelson Mandela, Coretta Scott King and Amnesty Worldwide, a company in any other case targeted on political prisoners in different nations.
At the moment, although, the story is fairly easy: There's an ailing, 77-year-old Indigenous man who has been in jail for 46 years who by no means ought to have been there within the first place.
Peltier just lately recovered from an unpleasant bout with COVID-19, and he’s acquired critical well being issues associated to diabetes and an belly aortic aneurysm. He has maintained his innocence all these years, though it has nearly actually prevented him from being paroled.
The million-dollar query is, why is Peltier nonetheless in jail? The reply to that can also be fairly easy: The FBI doesn’t need him to ever get out and is utilizing a flimsy, face-saving argument for protecting Peltier in jail till he dies.
Hirono is the third Democratic senator to personally attraction to Biden to grant clemency to Peltier within the final a number of months.
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), the longest-serving senator and a former chairman of the Judiciary Committee, informed HuffPost in November that it's time for Peltier to go house. In February, he went on to publicly name on Biden to free him. Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), who chairs the Indian Affairs Committee, has additionally urged Biden to grant clemency to Peltier.
In a press release, a spokesperson for Hirono mentioned the senator “has lengthy championed the rights of our nation’s Indigenous communities” and that her help for Peltier’s launch is a pure extension of these efforts.
“She is grateful to the advocates and the media protection that has shed additional gentle on this subject within the current months and determined to lend her title to the rising checklist of Members of Congress who're calling for Mr. Peltier’s sentence to be commuted,” mentioned the spokesperson.
A White Home spokesman didn't reply to a request for touch upon whether or not Biden is contemplating clemency for Peltier.
In a uncommon interview from jail, Peltier just lately informed HuffPost what he would say to Biden if he had him alone for 5 minutes.
“I’m not responsible of this taking pictures. I’m not responsible,” he mentioned. “I wish to go house to spend what years I've left with my great-grandkids and my individuals.”
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