The only Native American on federal death row is slated to be executed in late August, the United States government announced Wednesday.
Lezmond Mitchell, who is a Navajo, had been among the first of a handful of prisoners to be executed after the Trump administration restored federal executions after an informal 17-year moratorium. Mitchell has been temporarily saved by the United States Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, where his attorneys argued they should be able to interview jurors for possible racial bias.
Mitchell lost the offer in late April, but technically the case has not been closed, preserving the stay of execution. His attorneys have asked the appeals court to essentially hold the suspension in place while they seek review in the United States Supreme Court. The U.S. attorney in Arizona urged the appeals court on Wednesday to make a swift decision.
Lezmond Mitchell is scheduled to be executed in late August.
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The execution date of Mitchell, who was convicted of the 2001 murder of a Navajo woman and her 9-year-old granddaughter, is now August 26 at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terra Haute, Indiana, where he is being held.
Despite the horrifying nature of the killings, tribal officials and even the victims’ families opposed the death penalty. Native American tribes for decades have been able to tell federal prosecutors if they want a death sentence considered for certain crimes on their land. Almost everyone, including the Navajo Nation, has rejected that option.
Mitchell was convicted of auto theft that resulted in death, a crime that carries a possible death sentence no matter where it happens, meaning that the tribe had no means to object.
“The federal government’s announcement that it now plans to execute Lezmond Mitchell demonstrates a lack of respect for the values and sovereignty of the Navajo Nation,” his attorneys, Jonathan Aminoff and Celeste Bacchi, said in a statement Wednesday.
Federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, where Mitchell is located. (AP)
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Mitchell is slated to be executed in the same week as Keith Dwayne Nelson, who was convicted of kidnapping a 10-year-old girl while she was skating outside her Kansas home and raping her in a forest behind a church, then strangling her.
Three other federal inmates were executed earlier this month: Dustin Honken, Wesley Purkey, and Daniel Lewis Lee. They were all convicted of killing children.
Mitchell and an accomplice kidnapped 63-year-old Alyce Slim and her granddaughter in October 2001, with plans to use Slim’s vehicle in a robbery. Prosecutors said the two fatally stabbed Slim and cut the girl’s neck. Their decapitated and mutilated bodies were found in a shallow grave in the Navajo Nation.
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Mitchell’s attorneys have said he had no history of violence and was not the primary assailant. They said they will continue to seek ways to alleviate the sentences and the death sentence.
United States Attorney General William Barr said Wednesday that courts have repeatedly ruled against Mitchell.
Navajo Nation Council delegate Carl Slater, whose grandparents testified against capital punishment in Mitchell’s trial as educators, has been pressing the tribe to petition the federal government for clemency and affirm its position against the death penalty.
If the execution progresses, Slater said he would send a message that the federal government has no problem using the loopholes to infringe on the tribe’s sovereignty.
“This is completely in conflict with our values,” he said. “The government has an obligation to express and reflect our values. That is not just for our citizens, it is for other sovereigns who have these relationships. “
