Leonard Peltier: Amnesty Int'l Calls on Biden to Free Indigenous Leader "Before It's Too Late"

[Uncle Joe]

With just weeks left in President Joe Biden's term, we speak with Amnesty International USA executive director Paul O'Brien, who has written to the outgoing president urging him to "change course on critical human rights" before the end of his term in office. One of his key demands is for Biden to free Indigenous activist Leonard Peltier, who has been imprisoned for decades and repeatedly denied parole. Peltier recently turned 80 and has always maintained his innocence for the 1975 killing of two FBI agents in a shootout on the Pine Ridge Reservation. His conviction was riddled with irregularities and prosecutorial misconduct. "It's time to give him a chance to spend his last days with his family and with his community," says O'Brien. "He's been incarcerated as long as Joe Biden has been in national politics."

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[marble falls]

1. Whether he did it or not, it's about 30 yrs too long in prison. What possible danger would he be to his community????

Last edited Tue Nov 26, 2024, 12:54 PM - Edit history (1)

[whathehell]

3. So your personal opinion

is that, "whether he did it or not", a double murder merits no more than a 20 year sentence? I think many would disagree with that, and I would be one.

In answer to your question "What possible danger would he be to his community"? The answer is likely "none", but the fact is,
that's not the only consideration.

[marble falls]

4. Let's say he did it (I suspect he did) ...

... the US imprisons a higher per capita of it's citizens than anybody else not Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, North Korea. We sentence people to higher effective terms than anyone, including Russia, China, North Korea. We use the death penalty more than just about anywhere else except China, Saudi Arabia.

And the violent crime rate here is higher than than any developed country. We treat our prisoners worse than any of the developed countries.

It just isn't working.

Do you think that the purpose of prisons is to moderate behavior, or to get even? Are prisons there to assure the victims of crime know someone is suffering or demonstrate society's values regarding certain behaviors?

A lot of people think cases are made to "get the dead justice". That's not it all. There is no justice for the dead or their families. The justice is reserved for the accused. All the dead are is evidence that a crime may have been committed. Not only do interested parties not get a place in the process as judge, jury, prosecutor, jailer, "punisher"; the public does not get to be a lynch mob, either.

We won't even get into the abysmal treatment of prisoners or the high percentage of the innocent jailed. Or the number "law abiding" citizens who think prison rape and other cruel and inhumane extrajudicial treatment is just fine.

The biggest consideration to parole IS whether the prisoner will recidivate and/or be a threat to his community. That's the stated aim of parole and probation for Pete's sake!!!! Why should you living in Cleveland have any say about a criminal in San Diego? Let alone a Sioux reservation in Nebraska or South Dakota!!!

[Sneederbunk]

2. TSF hates the FBI. Why doesn't he pardon Peltier?