US authorities executes solely Native American on demise row, regardless of calls from tribal leaders to the President for clemency

Mitchell, 38, died by deadly injection in Terre Haute, Indiana.

Mitchell’s demise sentence drew fierce opposition from the leaders of his tribe, the Navajo Nation, and the leaders of 13 different tribal nations who criticized the federal authorities’s actions as an insult to their sovereignty.

Attorneys for Mitchell stated the federal authorities “added one other chapter to its lengthy historical past of injustices in opposition to Native American individuals” along with his execution. “The actual fact that he confronted execution regardless of the tribe’s opposition to a demise sentence for him mirrored the federal government’s disdain for tribal sovereignty,” attorneys Jonathan Aminoff and Celeste Bacchi stated in a press release.

The Navajo Nation’s president and vp wrote to Trump in late July asking him to scale back Mitchell’s sentence to life in jail.

“This request honors our non secular and conventional beliefs, the Navajo Nation’s long-standing place on the demise penalty for Native People, and our respect for the choice of the sufferer’s household,” Navajo President Jonathan Nez and Vice President Myron Lizer wrote in a joint letter. One sufferer’s father has since spoken out in favor of the demise penalty for Mitchell, saying the Navajo Nation doesn’t communicate for him.

Regardless of Mitchell’s petition for clemency and a number of letters to the President from leaders of a number of tribal nations, Trump didn’t act on the request to spare Mitchell from demise. Lizer appeared Tuesday evening in a talking position on the Republican Nationwide Conference saying, “At any time when we meet with President Trump, he has all the time made it a precedence to restore the connection with our federal household.” Lizer didn’t point out the pending clemency petition earlier than the President.

Mitchell was convicted in reference to the 2001 murders of a 63-year-old Navajo lady, Alyce Slim, and her 9-year-old granddaughter, Tiffany Lee, on the Navajo reservation within the northeast nook of Arizona. Prosecutors stated Mitchell and his co-defendant murdered Slim and Lee, dismembering each of their our bodies and burying them, so they might steal Slim’s pickup truck and use it in an armed theft. Mitchell, who was 20 on the time of the crimes, was discovered responsible on a number of fees together with first-degree homicide, felony homicide and carjacking leading to demise.

Mitchell’s attorneys have stated he can be the primary Native American in fashionable historical past to be executed by the US authorities for against the law dedicated in opposition to one other Native American on tribal land.

Below federal regulation, Native American tribes are given a “tribal choice” to determine whether or not members will obtain the demise penalty if convicted of sure crimes, together with homicide. A majority of Native American tribes, together with the Navajo Nation, haven’t opted in to the demise penalty.

However federal prosecutors in Mitchell’s case discovered a authorized loophole — they might pursue the demise penalty within the carjacking leading to demise cost, which isn’t thought of a severe crime below the regulation and isn’t a part of the settlement permitting tribes to object to the demise penalty.

A number of judges have voiced their concern for this dismissal of tribal sovereignty, regardless of denying appeals from Mitchell. In April, two judges on the Ninth Circuit Court docket of Appeals wrote separate opinions questioning the Justice Division’s determination to hunt the demise penalty in Mitchell’s case.

“The imposition of the demise penalty on this case is a betrayal of a promise made to the Navajo Nation, and it demonstrates a deep disrespect for tribal sovereignty,” Decide Morgan Christen wrote.

Decide Andrew Hurwitz urged the Trump administration to “take a contemporary take a look at the knowledge of imposing the demise penalty,” noting that “a correct respect for tribal sovereignty requires that the federal authorities not solely pause earlier than looking for that sanction, however pause once more earlier than imposing it.”

Mitchell’s attorneys additionally raised issues about potential racial bias in his conviction and sentencing, pointing to the truth that he was tried in a federal court docket 300 miles from the capital of the Navajo Nation and his jury was comprised of 11 White individuals and one Native American. The Ninth Circuit Court docket of Appeals rejected Mitchell’s movement to interview jurors to find out if there was racial bias in his case.

Final-minute appeals to the Supreme Court docket and federal court docket in Washington, DC, had been denied.

“Practically 19 years after Lezmond Mitchell brutally ended the lives of two individuals, destroying the lives of many others, justice lastly has been served,” Division of Justice spokesperson Kerri Kupec stated in a press release Wednesday night.

Mitchell is the fourth federal inmate executed this summer season after the Justice Division reinstated the federal demise penalty following a 17-year hiatus.

This story has been up to date with Mitchell’s execution.

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