Leonard Peltier Attorneys Shift Gears Following Parole Denial

By Amelia Schafer.

RAPID CITY, S.D. – Following the U.S. Parole Commission’s denial of Leonard Peltier’s 2024 request, Peltier’s attorneys are preparing to file an appeal.

The Anishinaabe elder’s lead attorney Jenipher Jones and attorney Moira “Mo” Meltzer-Cohen said they will appeal the commission’s “grotesquely unconstitutional” July 2 decision.

Peltier, a citizen of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians, is currently serving two consecutive life sentences at Coleman Maximum Security in Florida for aiding and abetting in the murder of two FBI agents on June 26, 1975, in South Dakota.

His team has 30 days to submit an appeal to the appellate office of the U.S. Parole Commission. Following this, the National Appeals Board has 60 days to make a decision.

“A lot of these decisions, including this one, are frankly death by incarceration. What the U.S. Commission decided on was a form of a death sentence for Leonard,” Jones said.

Peltier is considered an ‘old law’ prisoner, Jones said, meaning that he’s subject to rules that those convicted post-1987 are subject to the U.S. Parole Commission.

In 2026, Peltier will be eligible for another parole hearing and in 2039 there will be a full reconsideration hearing, Jones said. Peltier will be nearly 95 years old when the hearing is held in 2039.

“They gave me more time and that is a death sentence,” Peltier said in a July 3 statement. “The fight has not ended for me and so far Jenn Jones has sworen [sic] her full support to the end.”

Following the July 2 decision, calls for President Joe Biden to grant Peltier clemency ramped up from organizations such as Amnesty International and the Rapid City-based NDN Collective.

“This is a sad day for Indigenous people and justice everywhere,” said NDN Collective founder Nick Tilsen in an interview with ICT and the Rapid City Journal. “How Leonard Peltier has been treated throughout his prosecution and incarceration is consistent with how they have treated Indigenous people throughout history and today.”

Tilsen, Oglala Lakota, said NDN Collective will now be moving to an all-out campaign for executive clemency.

“If we learned anything from Leonard Peltier it’s that we need to keep fighting and we need to keep standing against the United States government, how they view our people,” Tilsen said. “At this moment, although it’s sad, we need to rise up. There’s no future of democracy without Indigenous people.”

Peltier’s clemency and compassionate release attorney, Kevin Sharp, declined a request for an interview, but provided a statement.

“Today’s announcement continues the injustice of this long ordeal for Leonard Peltier,” Sharp said in a July 2 statement. “This decision is a missed opportunity for the United States to finally recognize the misconduct of the FBI and send a message to Indian Country regarding the impacts of the federal government’s actions and policies of the 1970s. Our work to ensure Leonard Peltier is free will not stop – we will immediately begin an appeal to the Parole Commission’s Appeals Board and in federal court. I have not lost hope that Leonard Peltier will one day be free.”

Jones represents Peltier as his lead attorney in the administrative appeals and litigation process. Sharp represents him in his quest for clemency.

“Continuing to keep Leonard Peltier locked behind bars is a human rights travesty,” said Paul O’Brien, executive director of Amnesty International USA, in a July 2 statement. “President Biden should grant him clemency and release him immediately. Not only are there ongoing, unresolved concerns about the fairness of his trial, he has spent nearly 50 years in prison, is approaching 80 years old, and suffers from several chronic health problems.”

Originally published in ICT + Rapid City Journal. Reprinted with permission.