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

Former Florida officer who raped, murdered 11-year-old set to be executed

An execution date has been set for a former Mascotte police officer who, in May 1987, assaulted and murdered an 11-year-old girl. Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a death warrant for James Aren Duckett on Friday. He’s scheduled to be executed on March 31. It’ll be the state’s 5th execution this year, following a record 19 executions in 2025. Duckett was convicted in the murder of 11-year-old Teresa McAbee about a year after her death. According to officials, Duckett took the 11-year-old to a lake, where he sexually battered, strangled and drowned her.

‘Come on with it’: Arkansas inmate asks to hasten execution

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Florida executes Melvin Trotter

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Man convicted in 1986 murder set to become Florida's second execution of 2026

STARKE, Fla. (DPN) — A man convicted of stabbing and strangling a grocery store owner during a robbery nearly 40 years ago is scheduled to die by lethal injection Tuesday evening, becoming the second person executed in Florida this year. Melvin Trotter, 65, is set to receive a three-drug lethal injection beginning at 6 p.m. at Florida State Prison near Starke. Trotter was convicted of first-degree murder in the 1986 killing of Virgie Langford, 70, who owned Langford’s Grocery Store in Palmetto, in southwest Florida's Manatee County.

India | POCSO Court awards death penalty to UP couple for sexual exploitation of 33 children

A special court in Uttar Pradesh’s Banda on Friday sentenced a former Junior Engineer (JE) of the Irrigation Department and his wife to death for the sexual exploitation of 33 minor boys — some as young as three — over a decade, officials said. The POCSO court termed the crimes as “rarest of rare” and held Ram Bhawan and his wife Durgawati guilty of systematically abusing children between 2010 and 2020 and producing child sexual abuse material. Convicting the duo under provisions of the Indian Penal Code and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, the court sentenced them to death for offences including aggravated penetrative sexual assault, using a child for pornographic purposes, storage of pornographic material involving children, and abetment and criminal conspiracy, they said.

North Carolina | DA won't seek death penalty against woman accused of poisoning family

HENDERSONVILLE, N.C. (DPN) — Prosecutors will not seek the death penalty against a Western North Carolina entrepreneur accused of poisoning her family during a Thanksgiving dinner and killing a man nearly two decades ago. During a mandatory Rule 24 hearing Thursday in Henderson County Superior Court, Assistant District Attorney John Douglas Mundy announced that the state will proceed with the case against Gudrun Linda Jean Casper-Leinenkugel, 52, as a non-capital matter. The decision removes the possibility of an execution, meaning the maximum penalty Casper-Leinenkugel now faces is life in prison without parole.

Twenty Years Since the Last Scheduled Execution in California and a Focus on the Participation of Physicians in Executions

February 21, 2006, a California court’s decision effectively halted the planned execution of Michael Angelo Morales, marking the start of California’s 20-year moratorium on execution scheduling and throwing into the spotlight the tension between physician participation in executions and their pledge to show “ the utmost respect for life .” " The events surrounding Morales’s impending fate brought to the surface the long-running schism between law and medicine, raising the question of whether any beneficial connection between the professions ever existed in the execution context. History shows it seldom did. Decades of botched executions prove it. " — Professor Deborah Denno, The Lethal Injection Quandary: How Medicine Has Dismantled the Death Penalty

Oklahoma Ends Indefinite Death Row Solitary Confinement

Every year, thousands of prisoners in the U.S. are placed in solitary confinement, where they endure isolation, abuse, and mental suffering . This practice might soon become rarer for some inmates in Oklahoma, thanks to the efforts of activists in the state. Earlier this month, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Oklahoma announced that the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester had ended the practice of indefinite solitary confinement for "the vast majority" of death row prisoners.

Chinese courts conclude trials of 2 criminal gangs from northern Myanmar, 16 sentenced to death

Chinese courts have concluded the trials of 2 major criminal groups based in northern Myanmar involved in telecom and online fraud, the Supreme People's Court (SPC) said Thursday. At a press conference held by the SPC, it was revealed that by the end of 2025, courts across the country had concluded first-instance trials of over 27,000 cases related to telecom fraud operations in northern Myanmar, with more than 41,000 returned suspects sentenced. Notably, among the trials of the so-called "4 major families" criminal gangs -- which had drawn widespread domestic and international attention -- those of the Ming and Bai groups have completed all judicial proceedings.

Florida | Governor DeSantis signs death warrant in 2008 murder case

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Governor Ron DeSantis has signed a death warrant for Michael L. King, setting an execution date of March 17, 2026, at 6 p.m. King was convicted and sentenced to death for the 2008 kidnapping, sexual battery and murder of Denise Amber Lee, a 21-year-old North Port mother. On January 17, 2008, Michael Lee King abducted 21-year-old Denise Amber Lee from her North Port home by forcing her into his green Chevrolet Camaro. He drove her around while she was bound, including to his cousin's house to borrow tools like a shovel. King took her to his home, where he sexually battered her, then placed her in the backseat of his car. Later that evening, he drove to a remote area, shot her in the face, and buried her nude body in a shallow grave. Her remains were discovered two days later. During the crime, multiple 9-1-1 calls were made, but communication breakdowns between emergency dispatch centers delayed the response. The case drew national attention and prompted w...

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