Leonard Peltier was imprisoned for 49 years before his sentence was commuted. A new Netflix documentary exposes the ‘corrupt’ system that allowed it to happen
On 20 January 2025, with 14 minutes remaining in his term as president, Joe Biden commuted the life sentence of Leonard Peltier, after years of pressure to release a figure seen by many as the longest-serving political prisoner in the US. The Indigenous activist, a leader within the American Indian Movement (Aim) and an icon of Native American resistance, served nearly 50 years in prison for allegedly killing two FBI agents during a shootout on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota, in 1975 – killings he has always denied, prosecuted in a railroaded trial widely seen as corrupt.
Outside the Florida prison where Peltier was being held that morning were several of the many activists and lawyers who fought for his release, as well as film-makers David France and Jesse Short Bull. The two directors’ long-gestating documentary on Peltier’s fight for justice was set to premiere just a week later at the Sundance film festival with a very different ending, the octogenarian still awaiting a chance to return home to the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa reservation in North Dakota. That morning, there was “a sinking feeling that it wasn’t going to happen”, France said.
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