FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Monday, Jan. 20, 2025

Contact: Tony Mangan, Communications Director, 605-773-6878 

Attorney General Jackley Statement on Leonard Peltier Sentence Commutation

PIERRE, S.D. – South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley released this statement following former President Biden’s decision to commute the sentence of Leonard Peltier from life in prison to serving the remainder of his sentence in home confinement:

“The Attorney General’s Office strongly opposes this action and has in recent months argued against any change in the defendant’s sentence. He was convicted in the 1975 cold-blooded murders of FBI Special Agents Ronald Williams and Jack Coler on the Pine Ridge Reservation. That conviction has been reviewed and upheld by no fewer than 22 federal judges since then. Former Gov. Janklow, who was Attorney General at the time of the murders, also opposed any reduction or change in sentence.  I was the prosecutor in the Annie Mae Aquash murder trial that elicited the testimony from the witness recounting how Peltier described in his own words executing the FBI Special Agent by shooting him through his hand raised to protect himself into the face. The Attorney General’s Office will continue to stand with, and protect, law enforcement.”

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