On January 2015 Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto utilized new presidential powers of pardon on the very day that they went into effect to free Mayan school teacher Alberto Patishtán Gómez. The authors reflect on the similarities between Patishtán case in Mexico and Leonard Peltier case in the United States. Patishtán had been imprisoned for 13 years following a trial riddled with irregularities and violations of his constitutional rights. On October 31, utilizing new presidential powers of pardon on the day that they went into effect, Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto pardoned Mayan school teacher Alberto Patishtán Gómez, who had been imprisoned for 13 years following a trial riddled with irregularities. Condemned to 60 years in prison for his ostensible participation in an ambush in which seven policemen were killed, his unjust imprisonment was denounced by Amnesty International and human rights organizations throughout Mexico and the world. His case is one of many in which the legal system served the interests of groups holding political power and demonstrates how structural racism continues to generate a lack of access to justice for indigenous peoples, in Mexico and throughout the Americas.