U.S. to execute only Native American on federal death row
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[August 26, 2020]
By Jonathan Allen
(Reuters) - The United States is set to
execute Lezmond Mitchell, a convicted murderer and the only Native
American on federal death row, on Wednesday, despite opposition from the
Navajo Nation, which says the government is infringing tribal
sovereignty.
Mitchell, a Navajo, is set to be killed with lethal injections of
pentobarbital, a powerful barbiturate, at 6 p.m. in the Department of
Justice's execution chamber in Terre Haute, Indiana.
His lawyers and Jonathan Nez, the Navajo Nation president, have asked
U.S. President Donald Trump for clemency, and Mitchell has asked the
U.S. District Court in Washington to delay the execution while this is
considered.
On Tuesday night, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected his bid for a stay
based on his lawyers' argument that racial bias may have tainted the
jury at his trial.
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Absent intervention, Mitchell, 38, will become the fourth man to be
executed by the U.S. government this summer after an informal 17-year
hiatus, which was caused in part by legal challenges to lethal injection
protocols and difficulties obtaining deadly drugs.
Mitchell and an accomplice, Johnny Oslinger, were convicted of murdering
a 9-year-old Navajo girl, Tiffany Lee, and her grandmother Alyce Slim in
2001 on the tribe's territory, which spans four states in the U.S.
Southwest.
According to prosecutors, the men stabbed Slim more than 30 times, put
the body in the backseat of her car alongside the granddaughter as they
drove elsewhere before killing the girl later and decapitating both
bodies.
Mitchell was sentenced to death in an Arizona federal court over the
objection of Navajo officials, who said the tribe's cultural values
prohibited taking human life "for vengeance." At least 13 other tribes
joined the Navajo Nation in urging Trump this month to commute
Mitchell's sentence to life in prison.
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The sun sets on the Federal Corrections Complex in Terre Haute,
Indiana, U.S. May 22, 2019. REUTERS/Bryan Woolston -/File Photo
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Oslinger was a teenager at the time and ineligible for the death
sentence.
Under the Major Crimes Act, the federal government has jurisdiction
over certain major crimes occurring on Indian territory, including
murder but usually cannot pursue capital punishment for a Native
American for a crime on tribal land without the tribe's consent.
Navajo officials, along with other leaders of other tribes, have
opposed the death penalty, including in Mitchell's case. But John
Ashcroft, attorney general under then-President George W. Bush,
overrode federal prosecutors in Arizona who said they would defer to
the tribe's position against pursuing a capital case.
In what Mitchell's lawyers deride as a legal loophole, federal
prosecutors successfully pursued a capital case against Mitchell for
carjacking, a capital crime that is not among those listed in the
Major Crimes Act.
(Reporting by Jonathan Allen; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
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