Netflix released "Free Leonard Peltier" on Monday, October 12, putting one of the longest running fights in American criminal justice in front of a worldwide audience. The documentary follows Peltier's 49 years in federal prison for the 1975 killings of two FBI agents on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, ICT News reported.
The film, directed by Jesse Short Bull and David France, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2025, according to Wikipedia. It uses older interviews with Peltier, new conversations with activists who were at Pine Ridge in 1975, protest footage and recreations made with artificial intelligence.
What happened at Pine Ridge
FBI agents Jack Coler and Ronald Williams were killed during a confrontation on the reservation in 1975. According to the FBI, the agents were there to serve arrest warrants for robbery and assault with a dangerous weapon, OPB reported.
At trial, prosecutors argued that Peltier shot both agents in the head at point-blank range. Peltier, an activist with the American Indian Movement, acknowledged he was there and fired from a distance. He said he acted in self-defense and that his shots were not the fatal ones.
He was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder and sentenced to two consecutive life terms. Two fellow AIM members, Robert Robideau and Dino Butler, were acquitted on self-defense grounds in a separate trial. A woman who said she saw Peltier shoot the agents later recanted and said her testimony had been coerced, according to OPB.
Peltier, a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians, has maintained his innocence for more than 50 years.
Clemency, and the FBI's answer
On January 20, 2025, his last day in office, President Joe Biden commuted Peltier's life sentence to home confinement. It was not a pardon. The conviction stands, and Peltier must serve the rest of his sentence in home confinement. His tribe arranged a house for him on its North Dakota reservation, according to OPB.
The decision drew a sharp response from law enforcement. In a letter to Biden, FBI Director Christopher Wray expressed "vehement and steadfast opposition" to any commutation and called Peltier "a remorseless killer," NPR reported. Wray wrote that a commutation "would be shattering to the victims' loved ones."
Natalie Bara, president of the FBI Agents Association, said the group was "outraged." She called the commutation "cowardly" and described Peltier as "a convicted cop killer."
Supporters saw it differently. Mark Macarro, who leads the National Congress of American Indians, told Biden that Peltier had served "five decades in federal prison for a crime that the government has admitted it could not prove," according to NPR. At least 34 members of Congress had called for his release.
Peltier left the federal prison in Coleman, Florida, in February 2025.
A film with three endings
The filmmakers kept working as the case changed. The documentary has three endings, one made before clemency, one that includes his release and a final one showing Peltier watching the film at home, according to ICT News.
Producer Jhane Myers told ICT the film's reach will be global. "It's going to go worldwide, worldwide," she said. Holly Cook Macarro, a lobbyist with the Indigenous-led nonprofit NDN Collective, which has campaigned for Peltier's freedom, told ICT that "the story of Leonard Peltier is far better known abroad than it has been in the United States."
Critics were split on the craft. The Hollywood Reporter's Daniel Fienberg faulted the AI recreations, while Screen Daily's Amber Wilkinson argued the film's subject is larger than one man, according to Wikipedia's summary of reviews.
Peltier remains under home confinement. ICT reported that Cook Macarro had hoped he could attend an October 4 art exhibit of his paintings in New York, but he was denied a furlough.
Decades-old cases have a way of coming back. Read how prosecutors finally won a verdict in the killing of Tupac Shakur. It is the kind of case the Two Taps legal panel of Daniel Rosenberg, Michael Dye and Lloyd Golburgh takes apart on the show.
Two Taps News stories summarize reporting and the analysis discussed on Two Taps and Friends. They are not legal advice. Read our standards.
