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Floor Speech
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Mr. SCHATZ. Madam President, as President Biden considers candidates for clemency in the final weeks of his term, the Native American activist Leonard Peltier is among those who deserve grace and mercy.
Peltier was arrested in 1975 for his alleged involvement in the murder of two FBI agents in a shootout on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. But the process that led to his conviction had major issues and inaccuracies from the start.
For example, one witness whose statements were used at trial said she was told to lie and say that she was in a relationship with Peltier and that she had witnessed him shoot the agents. She later recanted that statement saying:
I was forced into this, and I feel very awful. I just wish that Leonard Peltier would get out of prison.
In another instance, according to reporting, a juror who, on day two of the trial, professed her prejudice against Native Americans was allowed to remain on the panel.
If that wasn't enough, take it from the very U.S. attorney who tried the case. The prosecutor who tried the case, James Reynolds, said Peltier had served his sentence on ``the basis of minimal evidence, a result that I strongly doubt would be upheld in any court today.'' In the same letter, Reynolds urged President Biden to commute Peltier's sentence, writing:
I write today from a position rare for a former prosecutor. To beseech you to commute the sentence of a man who I helped put behind bars. With time, and the benefit of hindsight, I have realized that the prosecution and continued incarceration of Mr. Peltier was and is unjust. We were not able to prove that Mr. Peltier personally committed any offense on the Pine Ridge Reservation.
Peltier is now 80 years old and has been in prison for 50 years. He is in declining health, experiencing vision loss and other illnesses. And in spite of all that, earlier this year, Federal officials denied his request for compassionate release and parole.
And so even if you believe that he did, in fact, commit the crime, surely now, the time is now to let him spend whatever remaining days he has at home to die with his family. He has done his time. He is of old age and in poor health. This is what clemency is for. This is what mercy is for. He poses little threat to society.
If there was ever a case that merited compassionate release, Leonard Peltier's is it. This is exactly what this awesome Presidential power is for--to right a historic wrong. And if not that, then just to show mercy and let an old man die with his family.
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