Leonard Peltier is a Lakota political activist and member of the American Indian Movement. Peltier is currently serving two consecutive life sentences for the murders of the two FBI agents, however, this is not where his story ends, and his imprisonment is surrounded by controversy and mystery. On one side, the FBI states that he is a killer with a closed case and plenty of evidence against him. On the other side, political activists believe that he is a political prisoner, innocent of the crimes lodged against him. In this analysis of Leonard Peltier and his life, both sides will be explored in depth, as well as the events leading up to and after the incident with the FBI agents, and the opinion of the author of this analysis.
Leonard Peltier
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Because of the violence occurring in the reservation, as well the FBI agents being unidentifiable as government officials, allowed the two to be released on account of self defense. When Peltier was finally arrested though, it was a different story. After the FBI Laboratory teams reviewed the evidence, they came to the conclusion that Peltier was in fact the one who fired the AR-15 that killed the two agents. However, there were relatively major discrepancies between the two trials. In Peltier’s trial, they did not use the same tactics as with Robideau and Butler, leading him to be sentenced with two consecutive life sentences. In fact, certain pieces of evidence were not allowed at Peltier’s trial, as realized in 1986 during an appeal, which could have potentially helped his case, but the court still ruled in favor of the jury’s ruling (Quick Facts…). There was also a restriction put in place for the defense on what evidence they could and couldn’t use, barring them from stating that the FBI has a history of tampering with evidence in order to enforce their