For the second time in recent months, House Democrats are urging President Joe Biden to grant clemency to Leonard Peltier , the 77-year-old Native American rights activist who has been in prison for 45 years and recently tested positive for COVID-19.

On October 8, 2021, my colleagues and I requested the expedited release of Mr. Leonard Peltier from the Coleman Federal Correctional Complex in Florida, reads a Wednesday letter to Biden, led by Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.). The expedited release request was based on his age, underlying health conditions, the amount of time he had already served, and his risk of medical complications due to COVID-19.

We write to you again requesting clemency for Mr. Peltier, but with greater urgency, since Mr. Peltier tested positive for COVID-19 on January 28, 2022.

When Grijalva and other lawmakers wrote to Biden in October, they were joining a chorus of decadeslong protests over Peltiers imprisonment . Peltier, a member of the American Indian Movement, was convicted over his role in the murder of two FBI agents during a 1975 shootout on Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. His trial was riddled with misconduct: Prosecutors hid key evidence. The FBI threatened and coerced witnesses into lying. A juror admitted she was biased against Peltiers race on the second day of the trial, but was allowed to stay on anyway.

Yet with no evidence that Peltier committed a crime something a former U.S. Attorney who helped put Peltier in prison has since admitted and is now urging Biden to release him the FBI and U.S. Attorneys Office convicted Peltier and he was sentenced to two consecutive life sentences.