Who Is Leonard Peltier, and Why Is His Murder Conviction Controversial?

The spring of 1975 saw ongoing violence between the American Indian Movement and the militia of the Pine Ridge Reservation’s tribal government. An increased federal presence only added to the tensions on the South Dakota reservation. On June 26, FBI agents Jack Coler and Ronald Williams entered the reservation to arrest a man for alleged assault with a deadly weapon and the armed theft of a pair of cowboy boots. The agents were injured by gunfire, then fatally shot at close range.

AIM activist Leonard Peltier, who admitted to participating in the gunfight but denied firing point blank at the FBI agents, was the only person convicted of their murders. AIM member Joseph Stuntz was also fatally shot that day, but no charges resulted from his death.

Supporters long questioned the fairness of Peltier's trial, though he served 49 years before receiving a commutation in 2025.

In 1976, two shootout participants went on trial in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, for the FBI agents' murders. Peltier wasn't tried with them because he was fighting extradition from Canada.

The defense argued that past FBI actions had contributed to a climate of fear on the reservation. Among those called to the stand was the FBI director, who testified about COINTELPRO, a defunct counterintelligence program that targeted groups the Bureau considered threats. Peltier's co-defendants were acquitted on the grounds of self-defense.

After he was extradited, Peltier's trial took place in Fargo, N.D., in 1977. His judge didn't allow the same background information about the FBI. The government also presented evidence that Peltier, who'd had an outstanding federal warrant, had been aware he was shooting at law enforcement.

A ballistics expert testified that extractor marks on a .223 shell casing found in the trunk of Agent Coler's vehicle showed it had been loaded into and extracted from an AR-15 discovered in a car linked to Peltier associates in September 1975. (The firing pin was too smooth for a match.) No trial witness saw anyone but Peltier with an AR-15 on the day of the gunfight. However, on cross examination, several witnesses said the FBI had threatened or intimidated them in the early days of the investigation.

On April 18, 1977, Peltier was found guilty of two counts of first-degree murder. He received two consecutive life sentences on June 1.

Myrtle Poor Bear said that after months of FBI harassment, in 1976 she'd signed false affidavits about seeing Peltier shoot the agents. She disclaimed all of them during Peltier's trial, but the judge didn't let her testify in front of the jury. An appeal noted that Peltier's extradition from Canada had considered two of these affidavits, but in 1978, his convictions were affirmed.

A Freedom of Information Act request revealed an October 1975 FBI teletype that said the AR-15 recovered in September 1975 had a different firing pin than the weapon from the reservation murders. Peltier appealed on the grounds that he'd been denied exculpatory evidence. In a court-ordered evidentiary hearing, the analyst said the casing found in the murdered agent's car trunk wasn't tested until after that teletype had been sent.

The court's 1986 decision stated that other teletypes seemed to contradict the analyst's explanation of the testing timeline and said, "There is a possibility that the jury would have acquitted Leonard Peltier had the records and data improperly withheld from the defense been available to him." However, the appeals court upheld his convictions, ultimately finding the legal standard for a new trial hadn't been met.

Peltier also asserted the prosecution couldn't prove he'd shot the agents at point-blank range, which had been the government's theory according to the 1986 appeals court decision. In 1993, the court noted there was only circumstantial evidence that Peltier fired the fatal shots but added that the original trial had included the theory that he'd aided and abetted the murders. His convictions stood.

By the 1990s, awareness of weaknesses in the case against Peltier had grown, as had demands he be let out of prison. Tribal leaders, government representatives and Amnesty International, as well as figures like Robert Redford, Jesse Jackson and the Dalai Lama, supported Peltier.

Even the appeals court judge who wrote the 1986 decision not to overturn Peltier's convictions advocated for his release in 1991. His letter explained, "The FBI used improper tactics in securing Peltier's extradition from Canada and in otherwise investigating and trying the Peltier case."

The FBI opposed freeing Peltier, who was denied parole in 1993. In 2000, as President Bill Clinton considered clemency, hundreds of FBI agents marched to the White House in protest.

At his next full hearing in 2009, Peltier was again not paroled.

In a 2021 letter to President Joe Biden, a prosecutor on Peltier's case asked for his sentence to be commuted. He called Peltier's prosecution and ongoing incarceration unjust and admitted, "We were not able to prove that Mr. Peltier personally committed any offense on the Pine Ridge Reservation."

Amid continued FBI opposition to Peltier's release, in 2022, retired FBI agent Colleen Rowley wrote to Biden about Peltier's nearly 50 years in prison. She said, "Retribution seems to have emerged as the primary if not sole reason for continuing what looks from the outside to have become an emotion-driven 'FBI Family' vendetta."

By 2024, Peltier had been diagnosed with an aortic aneurysm, diabetes and impaired vision. He did not receive parole that year. His next full hearing was scheduled for 2039, when he would have been 94.

Before leaving office in January 2025, Biden commuted Peltier's sentence to home confinement. Peltier was freed on February 18. A member of the Turtle Mountain Chippewa tribe, he returned to North Dakota's Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation, where the Indigenous advocacy group NDN Collective had purchased a home for him.

Peltier maintains he did not murder the FBI agents. "I was no more guilty than my co-defendants," he told The New Yorker post-release. "I did not get a fair trial—all you got to do is read the court’s records."