Waterloo prosecutor calls commutation in FBI agents' deaths 'tragic.'
Evan "Curly" Hultman prosecuted Leonard Peltier in the 1970s; Peltier lawyers say action is "long overdue."
WATERLOO — A former U.S. district attorney from Waterloo said it’s “tragic” that outgoing President Joe Biden on Jan. 20 commuted the murder sentences of an aging and ailing indigenous rights activist from life in prison to home confinement for the shooting deaths of two FBI agents in South Dakota 50 years ago.
But Evan “Curly” Hultman, who headed up the prosecution and conviction of Leonard Peltier in the deaths of FBI special agents Ronald A. Williams and Jack R. Coler in the 1970s, and defeated numerous appeals, said he’s not surprised at the commutation.
“I can’t believe it — the murder and execution of two FBI agents,” Hultman, 99, said. “But I predicted it was going to happen, so it didn’t come as a surprise to me.”
But he’s glad the government was able to keep Peltier in prison as long as it did by defeating every appeal. He also was denied parole July 2.
Advocates for Peltier’s release from prison have ranged from world figures like Pope Francis and the Dalai Lama to actor Robert Redford, who narrated and was executive producer of a 1992 documentary on the subject, “Incident at Oglala,” for which Hultman was interviewed and appears in. Human rights groups like Amnesty International USA and indigenous rights advocacy groups also have called for Peltier’s release.
“President Biden was right to commute the life sentence of Indigenous elder and activist Leonard Peltier given the serious human rights concerns about the fairness of his trial,” Amnesty International USA said in a statement.
Hultman’s view also differs from that of the man he preceded and succeeded as U.S. district attorney for the northern district of Iowa, James Reynolds of Dubuque, who joined those advocating clemency for Peltier. Hultman prosecuted the case in the courtroom as a special assistant during Reynolds’ tenure and also handled the appeals after succeeding him. Reynolds’ 2021 letter to Biden asking for clemency was cited in the commutation announcement.
A White House statement issued before Biden left office notes Peltier “is now 80 years old, suffers from severe health ailments, and has spent the majority of his life (nearly half a century) in prison.
“This commutation will enable Mr. Peltier to spend his remaining days in home confinement but will not pardon him for his underlying crimes,” the statement added, which included a 1979 armed escape from custody in addition to the murders.
The Associated Press reported some of Peltier’s supporters said he did not seek a pardon because he maintained his innocence of the murders.
Hultman called the White House statement “double talk.”
The commutation also was opposed by recently resigned FBI Director Christopher Wray, who was appointed by President Trump in 2017 and left office earlier this month concurrent with Biden.
In a June letter to the U.S. Parole Commision, Wray wrote, “Over the past 45 years, no fewer than 22 federal judges have evaluated the evidence and considered Peltier’s legal arguments. Each has reached the same conclusion: Peltier’s claims are meritless, and his convictions and sentence must stand.”
Williams and Coler were killed on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation near Oglala, S.D. on June 26, 1975 as they were looking to serve an arrest warrant on a suspect for weapons charges. They were confronted, a gun battle ensued, and the agents, both wounded, were then killed by gunshots to the head at point blank range. The bullets were the caliber fired from an AR-15 rifle.
Peltier, a member of the American Indian Movement, was arrested in Canada in February 1976 and extradited to the United States. After a trial, he was convicted and sentenced to two consecutive life terms in April 1977 but has maintained his innocence. AIM member Joe Stuntz also was shot and killed as other federal authorities arrived under fire to aid the fallen agents. Stuntz’s death did not result in any legal proceedings.
While Peltier was in Canada fighting extradition in court, fellow AIM members Robert Robedeau ad Darrell “Dino” Butler were acquitted at a trial in Cedar Rapids in mid-1976 in which Hultman represented the government. Defense attorney William Kunstler successfully argued a case of self defense for both men and that there was no evidence linking them to the fatal close-range shots that killed the wounded agents.
“It’s a tragedy. I don’t call it a murder, I call it an execution,” Hultman said. “Pointing a weapon to the heads of the two agents is an execution, in my terms, rather than two murders. Terrible.”
In his June letter to the parole commission, former FBI director Wray said Coler was shot twice in the head as he lay unconscious on the ground and Williams, on his knees and unable to walk, was fatally shot in the face through an outstretched hand.
Presidents Clinton and Obama previously denied clemency for Peltier.
Hultman, a former Iowa attorney general and the 1964 Republican gubernatorial nominee, served as U.S. attorney for the northern district of Iowa from 1969 to 1977 under the administrations of Presidents Nixon and Ford. Reynolds, a Democrat, replaced him as district attorney after President Carter was elected, but Hultman stayed on as a special assistant handling the Peltier case. Hultman then replaced Reynolds as U.S. district attorney following President Reagan’s election, returning to that office in 1982 through 1986 and successfully fought multiple appeals in the Peltier case.
The Biden House statement cited the 2021 letter by Reynolds supporting clemency as one of the bases for the commutation. Reynolds said Peltier’s conviction was based on “minimal” evidence and doubted a conviction could be obtained today.
In his letter to President Biden, Reynolds said, “I was the U.S. attorney whose office handled the prosecution and appeal of Leonard Peltier’s case,” and said he was writing “to beseech you to commute the sentence of a man I helped put behind bars.”
Hultman, however, said that he, as a special prosecutor, personally tried the case and represented the government on appeals.
Reynolds also wrote, “With time, and the benefit of hindsight, I have come to realize the prosecution and continued incarceration of Mr. Peltier was, and is, unjust. He has served 46 years (through 2021) on the basis of minimal evidence, a result that I strongly doubt would be upheld in any court today.”
Hultman said the observations in Reynolds’ letter “are invalid, and in conflict with the actual trial conclusions of 12 jurors.”
“It’s a real slap in the fact of law enforcement,” Hultman said. “The government was successful in the trial and in all of the appeals. And all this was is a presidential (commutation) at the end,” he said, “in defiance of” material evidence presented and the conclusion of jurors
”It’s a slap in the face to the jury system,” Hultman said.
Reynolds also wrote, “The events that occurred, and the lives lost, on the Pine Ridge reservation that day are a tragedy. However, throughout Mr. Peltier’s prosecution and appeal, there was little or no consideration given to the FBIs role in the creation of the dangerous conditions present on Pine Ridge.” Testimony on those conditions was allowed at the 1976 Cedar Rapids trial of Robideau and Butler, but not at Peltier’s 1977 trial in North Dakota, under a different judge.
The Oglala incident occurred less than two years after some 200 Oglala (Lakota) Sioux aligned with AIM members occupied the village of Wounded Knee, S.D. engaging in a two-month armed standoff with federal authorities, resulting in two tribal members dead, one missing, 14 wounded and two federal agents wounded. Wounded Knee is the site of a 1890 massacre of some 300 Lakota people by soldiers of the U.S. Seventh Cavalry.
In asking for clemency for Peltier, Reynolds wrote Biden, “I urge you to chart a different path in the government’s relationship with its native people through a show of mercy rather than continued indifference.”
Natalie Bara, president of the FBI Agents Assocation, said that group is “outraged” at the commutation, calling it “disgraceful” and added that it is “cowardly and lacks transparency.”
“It is a cruel betrayal to the families and colleagues of these fallen agents and is a slap in the face of law enforcement,” Bara said in a prepared statement. “The profound sacrifice made by Agents Coler and Williams should be honored, not diminished.”
Peltier has maintained he did not fire the fatal head shots which killed agents Coler and Williams. The ad hoc committee making up his legal team issued a statement which said, in part: “While we celebrate Leonard Peltier’s long-overdue freedom, we remain committed to addressing the systemic inequities his case represents.…Today, we celebrate. Tomorrow, we continue the fight for justice.”
Peltier is tentatively scheduled to be transferred from prison in Florida to home confinement in late February.
Pat Kinney is a freelance writer and former longtime news staffer with the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier and, prior to that, several years at the Ames Tribune. He is currently an oral historian with the Grout Museum District in Waterloo. His “View from the Cedar Valley” column is part of “Iowa Writers Collaborative,” a collection of news and opinion writers from around the state who previously and currently work with a host of Iowa newspapers, news organizations and other publications. They are listed below. Clink on the links to check them out, subscribe for free - and, if you believe in the value of quality journalism, support this column and/or any of theirs with a paid subscription.
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Interesting debate, as I can make cogent arguments for each side.
At the end of the day, as someone who studied the Wounded Knee standoff when I was a student at the University of Iowa, I consider Peltier to be more like a POW than a common criminal.
I view the Wounded Knee occupation as the last gasp of the resistance of native americans to the federal government rounding them up, putting them on reservations and the deaths of hundreds of thousands.
This is an exceptionally good reporting job on a startling new development in a murder case that shocked & horrified the nation nearly 50 years ago. Thank you, Pat Kinney.