Leonard Peltier is a Native American activist serving a life sentence for the murder of two FBI agents in 1975. His charges come from a standoff on the Pine Ridge Reservation that ended in a shoot out killing two FBI agents and one AIM activist named Joseph Stuntz (no one was convicted for the death of the AIM activist as it was determined that it was a law enforcement sniper who killed him). Peltier fled to Canada but was extradited back to the US and charged with both murders. The defense argued that some evidence was falsified, but he was convicted regardless. Peltier has maintained his innocence and continued his activism for nearly fifty years in prison, and his case has become a rallying point for Indigenous activism ever since his conviction. Activists argue that the FBI was committing misconduct on the reservation to cause the standoff and shooting and that Peltier’s sentence is unfair and unjust. They have argued that what happened to Peltier is a reflection of the mistreatment that Native communities and individuals have endured from the federal government for centuries. Peltier was most recently denied parole in summer 2024, and has been denied a presidential pardon multiple times since his conviction (NPR 2024). He still expresses hope and sentiments of encouragement, activism, and justice to his supporters, despite his unfair treatment by the US legal system (NDN Collective 2023). I see the government and legal systems refusal to grant the aging Peltier parole or pardon as a gross breach of humanitarianism and justice, and I believe that the public refusal by the US government sends an extremely hostile message towards Indigenous activists and on the state of reparations between the US federal government and Native American communities. Extremely public cases like these are opportunities for major repairs to be made, and the failure of the government to pardon him is, to me, an outrageous move that is very unjust on an individual level because the conviction is shaky on evidence, but also because the impact of it is so much further reaching than just this one case.