Former federal judge who once sentenced people to long prison terms now working to free Peltier. Part 3
Part 3: Tennessee lawyer says Native American activist was wrongfully convicted
How did a former federal judge from Tennessee become such a staunch advocate for freeing Leonard Peltier?
Kevin Sharp is working pro bono to try to get Peltier released from a Florida prison. Sharp (shown above in his profile on X) was not familiar with the case until 2019, but since then, he has become engrossed in it, and devotes a large chunk of his time to free Peltier from the Florida prison where he is being held.
He said he hopes President Joe Biden does what other presidents have been asked to do but declined — grant Peltier clemency for the murders of two FBI agents in South Dakota in 1975.
“For practical purposes, his only way out is through the president,” Sharp said.
For three and a half years, he has devoted a lot of his energies to freeing a man he had not heard of until decades after the crime he was convicted of occurred. In fact, Sharp spent a large part of his career putting people behind bars.
From 2011-17, he served on the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee, including service from 2014-17 as the court’s chief judge. It was a lifetime appointment, but Sharp chose to change his career path after he sentenced a Tennessee man to a life term over his involvement in a drug trafficking conspiracy.
Sharp sentenced Chris Young to life in prison in 2014. It was a mandatory sentence because of two prior drug convictions. Young was 25 when he was told he would never be free again.
Sharp stepped down from the bench in 2017 and accepted a position with a private law firm. He met Brittney Barnett, a former corporate lawyer who operates the Buried Alive Project, which aims to help people serving lengthy prison terms find a means to reduce their sentence.
Barnett’s best-known case was representing Alice Johnson, who was serving a life term for her role in a cocaine-trafficking and money-laundering scheme. President Donald Trump was apprised of Johnson’s lengthy internment by celebrity Kim Kardashian West, who has taken on that cause.
In 2018, Trump commuted her sentence, and in 2020, he issued a full pardon, freeing Johnson.
Sharp tried to obtain clemency for Young, and he worked with Kardashian. That led to a White House meeting where he spoke with Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner and advocates for prison reform. He also had a discussion with President Trump.
Just before he left office in January 2021, Trump freed Young. He flew home to Tennessee, and when he stepped off a plane in Nashville, Sharp, who had sentenced him to life in prison, was there to greet him.
A Texas lawyer, Logan Ross, read about these efforts, contacted Sharp to see if he could help Peltier obtain his freedom. Other Peltier supporters, including film producer and activist Connie Koepke Nelson, the ex-wife of country music legend Willie Nelson, also urged him to look into the case.
Nelson sent trial transcripts, newspaper clippings, photographs and case opinions and Sharp became engrossed in Peltier’s case. He strongly feels Peltier was wrongfully convicted and deserves to be free.
Sharp was in touch with the Trump administration in its final days, hoping Trump would grant Peltier clemency. He said he was told Trump wanted information sent directly to the White House, not through the Department of Justice.
Sharp was communicating with Trump’s daughter Ivanka and her Jarrod and Ivanka and intermediaries on Jan. 19, 2021, in the final hours of the administration. He did not get a chance to lobby Trump, who was obviously going through a lot of things at that point.
“They were seriously considering doing it. And then the telephone calls just stopped. They quit calling asking questions and it just ended,” Sharp said. “And then I looked at the (clemency) list and it didn’t surprise me. They were safe. Nonviolent drug offenders. They were his friends, they were white-collar criminals and nonviolent drug offenders.”
Sharp said Kardashian is a supporter, but while she gained access to Trump because of her fame, that is not a factor with Biden, whom Sharp called “the anti-Trump.”
“Those kind of celebrity endorsements are not helpful,” he said.
Sharp said it’s important to consider the time when the agents were killed. Longtime Native American activist Russell Means, who died in 2012, knew and worked with Peltier.
Means often decried the justice system and how it betrayed Native people. Sharp agrees.
“Russell was right,” he said. “It’s the era, it’s the 1970s, that was this powder keg for reasons that were not of Indigenous people’s making. They were standing up.”
Sharp said the federal government ignored requests to give Native Americans fair treatment. Then, it sent armed men into Native communities, causing even more tension, anger and, at times, violence, he said.
“The federal government … did not care, they were in the way of what they wanted,” Sharp said. “And the government would for whatever it wanted because there was no one there to stop them.”
Young FBI agents, many from rural backgrounds with little knowledge of or respect for Native Americans, were dropped into Indian Country, in his view. Sharp said it reminds him of what happened in Vietnam with American soldiers placed in a culture they did not understand, with orders to use force to reach their goals.
He said his “pure speculation” is that Obama was pressured by the FBI not to free Peltier.
“It’s really the FBI that has this vendetta. Now, (retired FBI agent) Colleen Rowley, in her interview with the Guardian, confirmed what I had speculated, that the FBI has a vendetta. They do not want to let this go.”
Sharp said in a legal sense, it’s like he is allowed to file a motion, while the other side gets to have a private visit with the judge inside chambers. That is how this case has been handled for years, as federal agencies talk with each other and keep him in the dark.
“I’m really at a huge disadvantage, and the FBI gets to do that,” Sharp said. “Nobody tells me (anything).”
In March 2022, FBI Director Christopher Ray signed a letter in opposition to a request for clemency for Peltier. A retired FBI agent also contacted reporter Jennifer Bendery, who had been writing positive stories about the effort to free Peltier and said she needed to stop writing those stories and learn the full story, in their view.
The retired agent emailed Bendery a copy of the FBI director’s letter to the interim pardon attorney opposing a clemency request for Peltier. The reporter shared it with Sharp.
Ray’s letter claimed it was “undisputed” that Peltier was guilty. Sharp said that was a huge stretch, since the prosecution was largely based on a shell-casing test that supposedly linked Peltier to the bullets that killed FBI Special Agents Jack R. Coler and Ronald A. Williams on June 26, 1975.
He said while Peltier was present at Pine Ridge that day, and he did fire his weapon, as did many other people, there is no definite link to his gun and the bullets that killed Coler and Williams.
Ray claimed there is, and Sharp said that is clearly and provably false.
“What the hell,” he thought when he read the FBI director’s letter to the pardon attorney. “That’s not true. That’s not true at all.”
In 2021, James Reynolds, who was the federal prosecutor who led the case against Peltier, wrote a letter to Biden urging him to free Peltier.
“I write today from a position rare for a former prosecutor: to beseech you to commute the sentence of a man who I helped put behind bars,” he wrote. “With time, and the benefit of hindsight, I have realized that the prosecution and continued incarceration of Mr. Peltier was and is unjust. We were not able to prove that Mr. Peltier personally committed any offense on the Pine Ridge Reservation.”
It also explains why presidents have been reluctant to free Peltier. They are not getting the full story, Sharp said.
But he sees reason for hope.
“Two things: The shine on the FBI has dulled. They are not who they once were. We now know they are human beings with flaws,” Sharp said. “This is not Elliot Ness and ‘The Untouchables’ and Robert Stack. They are not the television show version of who we thought they once were. People see them as these white knights, and they are just not. They are human beings with flaws.”
In addition, Sharp said Biden recognizes the abuse and mistreatment Native Americans have suffered, and cares about the impact it had on them. His appointment of Deb Haaland, an enrolled citizen of the Laguna Pueblo tribe, as secretary of the Interior, is an indication of that. Haaland is the first Native American cabinet member in American history.
“I think Joe Biden recognizes that and cares,” he said.
The other reason, he said, is political.
“Indian Country is now important because their votes run through swing states,” he said.
He said Native American votes can be crucial in Wisconsin, Michigan and Arizona, which could help decide the 2024 election. If Peltier dies in prison, Native voters would be less likely to support Biden, Sharp believes.
Peltier’s health is a factor that must be considered, he said.
Sharp, 60, said Covid was tough on Peltier, and he understands that, since he had it twice and it took a toll on him. It also weakened Peltier, he said.
“He’s just more fragile,” he said. “He walks with a walker now. He’s got diabetes problems that are exacerbated when they spend so much time on lockup, which then changes their diet.”
Peltier has an aortic abdominal aneurysm that could rupture at any moment. Since the prison is an hour from Orlando and high-quality medical care, it could prove fatal, Sharp said.
He said when he visits Peltier, he is constantly told by prison staffers Peltier does not belong in a maximum security prison, since he is a frail old man.
“He’s a 79-year-old man who shuffled around with a walker,” Sharp said. “He’s not a threat and they know that.”
But the federal Bureau of Prisons still classifies him as a maximum security inmate, so he cannot be transferred to a prison within 500 miles of his home in North Dakota, since no such facility exists in that region.
It’s one reason he rarely sees family, since the cost to travel to see him is prohibitive.
“He’s just warehoused,” Sharp said. “I try to keep his hopes up, because I think there is legitimate reason to be hopeful.”
He said 2023 is the ideal time to release Peltier, before the pressures of the 2024 campaign and while people who care about him are still pressing for his release. In addition, Peltier’s age and health are reasons to send him home.
Sharp, co-vice chairman of Sanford Heisler Sharp and co-chair of the firm’s Public Interest Litigation Group, said Peltier may still be freed. It’s been a long time, but this story may well have another chapter, he said.
“No, it’s not a hopeless cause,” Sharp said.
Tom Lawrence has written for several newspapers and websites in South Dakota and other states and contributed to The New York Times, NPR, The Telegraph, The Daily Beast and other media outlets.
