USA | Justice Department sets August execution date for only Native American on death row

Navajo Nation objects to the death sentence for tribe member convicted of double homicide

The Justice Department on Wednesday scheduled the execution of Lezmond Mitchell, the only Native American on federal death row, for late August, his attorneys said Wednesday.

If the execution, scheduled for August 26, proceeds, it will be the 1st time in modern American history the government executed a Native American tribal member.

Mitchell is a member of the Navajo Nation. Under federal law, the U.S. government cannot pursue a death sentence for a capital murder committed on Native American land without the tribe’s consent.

Justice Department prosecutors in the early 2000s got around that restriction, however, by seeking the death penalty connected to a lesser charge.

Mitchell’s attorneys, Jonathan Aminoff and Celeste Bacchi, accused Justice Department prosecutors of exploiting a legal loophole.

“The federal government’s announcement that it now plans to execute Lezmond Mitchell demonstrates the ultimate disrespect for the Navajo Nation’s values and sovereignty,” they said in a statement.

The Justice Department pushed back in a statement, saying that Mitchell’s conviction and death sentence were affirmed on appeal by “every court that considered them.”

Lezmond Mitchell is a 37-year-old Navajo man convicted of murdering Alyce Slim and Tiffany Lee, two Navajo people on Navajo reservation land in 2001. The Navajo Nation has consistently maintained its position against capital punishment generally and as applied to Mitchell. This case represents the only time in the history of modern capital punishment that the United States Government has sought the death penalty over the objection of a Native American tribe when the criminal conduct in question was committed on tribal land. More information about this case is here.

With the execution of Dustin Lee Honken at the federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, on July 16, the USA has now executed 1,522 condemned individuals since the death penalty was re-legalized on July 2, 1976 in the US Supreme Court Gregg v Georgia decision.

Gary Gilmore was the 1st person executed, in Utah, on January 17, 1977. Below is a list of further scheduled executions as the nation continues its shameful practice of state-sponsored killings.

NOTE: The list is likely to change over the coming months as new execution dates are added and possible stays of execution occur.

1525-----Sept. 9----------John Ramirez----------------Texas

1526-----Sept. 30---------Carlos Trevino---------------Texas

1523-----Aug. 26----------Lezmond Mitchell----------Federal

1524-----Aug. 28----------Keith Nelson-----------------Federal

UPDATE FROM DEATH PENALTY ACTION (July 29)

Sister Barbara Batista has just been visiting Kieth Nelson at the Federal death house in Terre Haute, where he is scheduled to be executed on August 28th. Sister Barbara had news: Lezmond Mitchell was moved to death watch today. His execution date has been set for August 26th. Death Penalty Action will be there.

Here's the thing. Petitioning the President has proven to be a waste of time. The federal death penalty is being used as a political tool by the Trump Administration and the campaign to re-elect Donald Trump. For this reason, Death Penalty Action is instead petitioning congress:

Click to sign The Petition Now!

YOU have already signed our previous petition to congress, however, we've redrafted it now that situations have changed. We urge you to consider the new language and add your name to endorse this new language:

The federal death penalty is being used as a political tool by the Trump Administration and the campaign to re-elect Donald Trump. The administration is ignoring the law, ignoring compelling issues which demand executive clemency, ignoring the danger of executing during the pandemic, and even ignoring the families of victims in several cases who adamantly oppose the execution of the person convicted of killing their loved ones. For this reason, petitioning the President has proven to be a waste of time.

Executions do not keep society any safer from dangerous offenders than incarceration. We can do much better for the families of murder victims than the hollow promise of a possible execution decades in the future.

We are urging Congress to abolish the federal death penalty.

Background:

In July, 2019 the Trump Administration announced its intent to resume federal executions, setting three execution dates in December 2019 and two more in January, 2020. Appeals postponed those executions for months, however three federal death row prisoners were executed on July 14, July 16, and July 17, 2020. These problematic executions were the first to be conducted by the federal government since 2003. Another two federal executions are scheduled for August 26 and 28, 2020.

Additionally, responding to a rash of mass shootings, the Trump Administration announced in 2019 that it will push for expedited executions for mass shooters who happen to survive their terror attacks. The president has also called for speeding up executions in cases of drug kingpins and for the murder of law enforcement officers. Donald Trump has long used the death penalty as a political tool.

Many problems exist with federal, military and state death penalty laws. These issues are explored in great detail, here. Death Penalty Action believes the death penalty is not necessary to be safe from dangerous offenders or to hold them accountable. In an era where support for capital punishment is waning and states are abolishing the punishment, calling for more executions is political rhetoric intended to win support from particular voting blocks.

Most alarming, evidence came to light after the July 14, 2020 execution of Daniel Lee that the campaign to reelect Donald Trump has guided the strategy and timing of this spate of federal executions. Read about this in the Terre Haute Tribune Star report. Further evidence is currently being developed.

Click to sign The Petition Now!

Source: Washington Times, Staff; Rick Halperin; Death Penalty Action, July 29, 2020

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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

USA | What happens in the final weeks before an execution? These reporters were inside the room.

The journalists behind ‘The Last 12 Weeks’ earned extraordinary access to a death penalty defense team—and faced difficult ethical choices Many defense lawyers are naturally cagey. They work in a pressure cooker, protecting their clients’ rights while fighting for the best possible outcome. And arguably, the stakes can’t get any higher than trying to save a client’s life. So no, defense lawyers don’t usually invite journalists into strategy meetings. But that’s what happened when Marshall Project reporter Maurice Chammah and Serial Productions senior producer Alvin Melathe spent the final few months before a Texas execution embedded with a capital defense team.

North Korea | 'I was only 9': North Korean defector recalls childhood memory of public execution

Kim Eun-joo was 9 years old when her teacher stopped their lesson and told the class to follow her outside. The children were marched to a public execution ground in North Korea. “I would cry even when our family dog died,” Kim said in a recent interview with The Korea Times. “But the first time I watched humans killing a human, I had no words for what I was feeling. It was the most brutal scene I have ever seen, in any movie or in real life.” The memory has stayed with her ever since. Now a human rights advocate after defecting from North Korea, Kim recently brought that childhood scene to the 9th World Congress Against the Death Penalty in Paris, where North Korea’s use of public executions and capital punishment was officially placed on the agenda for the first time.

19 July 1943 | Auschwitz's Largest Public Hanging: 12 Polish Prisoners Executed in Escape Reprisal

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Former Florida cop to be executed on same day as 80-year-old Pasco man

In an unprecedented move in the modern history of capital punishment, Gov. Ron DeSantis on Tuesday cleared the way for 2 executions to occur on the same day. DeSantis reset the execution of James Duckett, whose execution earlier this year was stayed amid efforts to secure DNA testing and analysis of evidence in his case. Duckett’s execution was reset for July 28. That is the same day previously set for the execution of Dominick Occhicone. Court records indicate that Duckett’s execution is scheduled for noon. Occhicone’s is set to follow at 6 p.m.

Japan: Capital punishment for a minor

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Texas: The inmates who refused to die quietly and had to be gassed out of their cells before execution

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Florida executes Dennis Sochor

Man, 74, becomes oldest inmate executed in Florida in state’s 10th lethal injection this year Florida put to death one of its oldest prisoners in its history on Tuesday, a 74-year-old convicted murderer who was 1 of 3 older inmates scheduled for execution within the span of a month in the nation’s busiest death penalty state. Dennis Sochor was pronounced dead at 6:16 p.m. following a 3-drug injection at Florida State Prison near Starke, the office of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis said. He was convicted of killing a woman on Jan. 1, 1982, just hours after meeting her at a New Year’s Eve party.

Florida to execute William Silvia for 2006 shooting murder of wife

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Oldest inmate set to be executed in Florida will face strict spending limit for final meal

An entire category of food is also off-limits for final meal requests in Florida Florida is currently preparing to execute its oldest inmate later today (July 14), a 74-year-old convicted murderer who has been on death row since the 1980s—but his final meal will be limited by a strict budget. Dennis Sochor is scheduled to be put to death later today, making history as the oldest inmate to ever be executed in the state. The criminal, who has been on death row for nearly 40 years, will be administered the lethal three-drug injection, with the process due to begin at around 6pm.

Idaho | Death row prisoners sue over state's new firing squad

BOISE (Idaho Statesman) – Days after Idaho made the switch to a firing squad for executions, two Idaho death row prisoners next in line to be put to death sued the state prison system, saying its director withheld information about how she settled on the specifics for carrying out the method. Attorneys for prisoners Thomas Creech and Gerald Pizzuto filed suit this week in state district court against Idaho Department of Correction Director Bree Derrick. In the filing, they called her approval of an updated standard operating procedure for the firing squad and lethal injection as a backup method “arbitrary, capricious, or an abuse of discretion and in excess of the statutory authority of the agency.”

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