The following article appeared under the Partisan Defense Committee's Class-Struggle Defense Notes masthead in the print version of this issue of Workers Vanguard. The PDC is a class-struggle, non-sectarian legal and social defense organization which champions cases and causes in the interest of the whole of the working people. This purpose is in accordance with the political views of the Spartacist League.

Peltier: Former Prosecutor Calls for Clemency

(Class-Struggle Defense Notes)

The campaign to free Leonard Peltier received a boost in late December when James Reynolds, a former U.S. Attorney involved in the criminal frame-up of Peltier, wrote to President Obama saying clemency would be “in the best interest of Justice considering the totality of all matters involved.” This unexpected development is welcome and also speaks to the blatant frame-up of the American Indian Movement activist. Peltier was convicted of killing two FBI agents who were shot during a 1975 government assault on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota and was sentenced to two life terms. Discussing his letter to Obama with the New York Daily News (3 January), Reynolds admitted that “we might have shaved a few corners here and there” in the trial and the appeal. When asked if Peltier had killed the FBI agents, Reynolds told the Daily News, “He may not have.”

Peltier is an innocent man who never should have spent a day in prison. He is internationally renowned as an unbowed fighter who symbolizes resistance against this country’s racist repression of American Indians, the survivors of centuries of genocidal oppression. At his trial, the judge refused to allow any evidence of the government terror against the Indian reservation; ballistics evidence proving Peltier’s innocence was suppressed and “witnesses” were coerced to lie. At an appeal hearing in 1985, the lead prosecutor admitted, “We can’t prove who shot those agents.” The government has robbed Peltier of more than 40 years of his life, repeatedly denying him parole because he steadfastly refuses to admit guilt for a crime he did not commit.

A spokesman for Peltier reported that he does not want to get his hopes up given the number of past disappointments he has faced. Despite statements by 50 members of Congress and a judge who sat as a member of the court at both appeals calling for his release, Peltier has remained in federal penitentiaries around the country, often very far from his family and people. Peltier is now 72 years old and suffers from multiple serious medical conditions. In February 2016 he formally petitioned for clemency.

Leonard Peltier is one of the class-war prisoners who receive a monthly stipend from the PDC, which has long championed his freedom. When his health crisis worsened in January 2016, the PDC wrote to President Obama calling for Peltier’s immediate and unconditional release. We urge our readers to demand Peltier’s freedom now by contacting President Barack Obama, The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, D.C. 20500 and the Office of the Pardon Attorney, Honorable Robert A. Zauzmer, Acting Pardon Attorney, U.S. Department of Justice, 950 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C. 20530; telephone: (202) 616-6070; email: USPardon.Attorney@usdoj.gov. You can also write to Leonard Peltier, #89637-132, USP Coleman I, P.O. Box 1033, Coleman, FL 33521.