The only Native American on federal death row who killed a grandmother, 63, and her granddaughter, 9, claims execution would be 'unjust' because Navajo Nation disavows capital punishment and murders happened on tribal land
Attorneys for the only Native American man on death row, who is among the 5 men scheduled for the 1st federal executions since 2003, have said that his death would be a violation of tribal sovereignty.
Lezmond Charles Mitchell, 37, is set to be executed on December 11 for the 2001 murders of Alyce Slim, 63, and her nine-year-old granddaughter Tiffany Lee on Navajo reservation land in Arizona.
His pending execution is one of five announced on Thursday by Attorney General William Bar, in a surprise resumption of the federal death penalty after decades of an effective moratorium.
The killer and both of the victims were Navajo tribal members - and now attorneys for Mitchell argue that the federal government does not have legal authority to carry out the execution.
'This is the only case in the modern history of the death penalty where the federal government has denigrated tribal sovereignty in this manner, and Mr. Mitchell remains the only Native American on federal death row,' attorneys Jonathan C. Aminoff and Celeste Bacchi said in a statement to DailyMail.com on Monday.
Although Mitchell is the only Native American on federal death row, as of last October there were about 28 Native Americans on state death rows across the country, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
The Navajo Nation is the largest tribal reservation in the US, covering about 27,400 square miles in Arizona, Utah and New Mexico, with a population of about 350,000.
The Navajo tribe opposes the death penalty and did not 'opt in' to federal executions as required of tribal nations by the 1994 Crime Bill.
However, in 2015 the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Court ruled that while the federal government could not impose the death penalty for rape and murder on Navajo land, the carjacking charge against Mitchell made him eligible for capital punishment.
'It does not matter that the crime occurred in Indian country, and therefore, the opt-in provision of the Federal Death Penalty Act does not apply,' the court said in its ruling. 'In other words, carjacking resulting in death carries the death penalty regardless of where it was committed.'
The tribe's attorneys general and a chief justice have repeatedly written letters to congressional members and to federal attorneys in Arizona and New Mexico opposing Mitchell's execution.
The latest was a July 2014 letter by then-Chief Justice Herb Yazzie to John Leonardo, who served as U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona from 2012 to 2017, according to the Farmington Daily Times.
'Capital punishment is a sensitive issue for the Navajo people. Our laws have never allowed for the death penalty. It is our belief that the negative force that drives a person to commit evil acts can only be extracted by the creator. People, on the other hand, are vehicles only for goodness and healing,' Yazzie wrote.
Murders of Alyce Slim and Tiffany Lee
On October 28, 2001, Mitchell, then 20, and his 16–year–old accomplice, Johnny Orsinger, were seeking a vehicle to use in a robbery they planned to carry out on a trading post on the Arizona side of the reservation.
Grandmother Alyce Slim and her 9 year-old granddaughter Tiffany were traveling to see a medicine woman on the reservation when they apparently picked up Mitchell and Orsinger as hitchhikers.
When Slim stopped near Sawmill, Arizona, to let Mitchell and his accomplice out of the car, the men began stabbing her a total of 33 times as she tried to fight off the attack, according to court documents.
Once dead, her body was pulled onto the rear seat. The granddaughter was put next to her.
Mitchell drove the truck into the mountains with the girl sitting beside her grandmother's lifeless body.
In the mountains near Tsaile, Slim's body was dragged out of the truck
The girl was ordered out of the truck Mitchell told her 'to lay down and die,' according to court testimony.
Mitchell cut the girl's throat twice, but she didn't die. When she did not die, Mitchell and Orsinger each dropped large rocks on her head. 20-pound rocks bearing the child's blood were later found at the scene.
Mitchell and Orsinger left the murder scene, but later returned to hide evidence.
While Mitchell dug a hole in the ground, Orsinger severed the heads and hands of both victims in an effort to prevent their identification.
The dismembered parts were buried in the hole and the torsos were pulled into the woods. Mitchell and Orsinger later burned the victims' clothing and other personal effects. Mitchell washed the knives with alcohol to remove any blood.
Mitchell's attorneys do not deny his involvement in the heinous murders, but they do argue that he is less culpable than Orsinger, who was spared the death penalty due to his age.
'A life sentence would have been consistent with punishments meted out to similarly-situated defendants including Johnny Orsinger, Mr. Mitchell's co-defendant in these killings,' the attorneys said.
'Mr. Orsinger, who initiated the killings, had a history of violence, and, in fact, had previously murdered two people in an unrelated incident,' they continued.
'Mr. Mitchell, on the other hand, had no significant criminal history, no history of violence whatsoever, and was diagnosed by a board-certified psychiatrist as being psychotic at the time of the crimes.'
3 days after the murders, Mitchell and 2 other men robbed the Red Rock Trading Post at gunpoint, driving off in Slim's stolen GMC pickup truck, which they later burned.
On May 8, 2003, a jury in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona found Mitchell guilty of numerous offenses, including first degree murder, felony murder, and carjacking resulting in murder, and he was sentenced to death.
Mitchell is being held on federal death row at USP Terre Haute in Indiana.
His attorneys say that allowing his execution to go forward as scheduled on December 11 'would be a grave injustice, an affront to the Navajo Nation's values and sovereignty, and contrary to American values given our long history of discrimination towards the Native American people.'
Full statement of Lezmond Mitchell's attorneys
Statement issued by attorneys for Lezmond Mitchell on July 29 regarding his scheduled execution:
'Lezmond Mitchell is a Navajo man who was convicted of the 2001 murders of two Navajo people on Navajo reservation land in Arizona. The Navajo Nation has consistently maintained its opposition to capital punishment generally, and as applied to Mr. Mitchell specifically. Despite the objections of the Navajo Nation, as well as the objections of the victims' family and the local United States Attorney's Office, the federal government insisted that Mr. Mitchell be prosecuted capitally. This is the only case in the modern history of the death penalty where the federal government has denigrated tribal sovereignty in this manner, and Mr. Mitchell remains the only Native American on federal death row.
'The Government's violation of tribal sovereignty did not end with the decision to pursue a death sentence against Mr. Mitchell. In addition to the charging decision, the Government committed misconduct in the course of this prosecution by stashing Mr. Mitchell in a tribal jail without affording him his federal constitutional rights. For 25 days after his arrest, Mr. Mitchell was continually interrogated by the FBI without being provided with an attorney. Furthermore, in numerous different ways, the Government systematically excluded Navajos from serving on Mr. Mitchell's jury.
'Mr. Mitchell accepts responsibility for his role in these crimes and offered to plead guilty in exchange for a life sentence. A life sentence would have been consistent with punishments meted out to similarly-situated defendants including Johnny Orsinger, Mr. Mitchell's co-defendant in these killings. Mr. Orsinger, who initiated the killings, had a history of violence, and, in fact, had previously murdered 2 people in an unrelated incident. Mr. Mitchell, on the other hand, had no significant criminal history, no history of violence whatsoever, and was diagnosed by a board-certified psychiatrist as being psychotic at the time of the crimes. Mr. Orsinger, who was 16 years old at the time of the crimes, received a life sentence due to his age; yet Mr. Mitchell, who had just turned 20 and was less culpable, received a death sentence.
'Under these circumstances, allowing Mr. Mitchell's execution to go forward would be a grave injustice, an affront to the Navajo Nation's values and sovereignty, and contrary to American values given our long history of discrimination towards the Native American people.'
Source: Mail Online, Keith Griffith, July 30, 2019
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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
