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:
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.
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
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde