Leonard Peltier is a Native American activist who currently sits in federal prison, serving two life terms for the murders of two FBI agents.  For the last four decades, Native Americans across the country have petitioned the out-going president to pardon him.  With Obama leaving office in January, fresh calls to “Free Leonard Peltier” are rising.

On June 26, 1975, two federal agents were investigating the theft of a pair of cowboy boots on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.  This led them to the Jumping Bull property near the town of Oglala in search of a young man named Jimmy Eagle.  A shootout ensued in which the two agents were killed, apparently executed at close range.  This, in and of itself, begs for additional background information, as petty theft anywhere, much less on an Indian reservation, is not normally a case for the FBI.

The context that…