Lone Native American on U.S. death row executed
TERRE HAUTE, Ind. — The only Native American on federal death row was put to death Wednesday, despite objections from many Navajo leaders who had urged President Trump to halt the execution on the grounds it would violate tribal culture and sovereignty.
With Lezmond Mitchell’s execution for the grisly slayings of a 9yearold and her grandmother, the federal government under the prodeath penalty president has now carried out more executions in 2020 than it had in the previous 56 years combined.
The U.S. Bureau of Prisons confirmed Mitchell was pronounced dead at 6:29 p.m. after receiving a lethal injection of pentobarbital inside the small, palegreen death chamber at the federal prison in Terre Haute, Ind.
Mitchell, 38, and an accomplice were convicted of killing Tiffany Lee and 63yearold Alyce Slim, who had offered them a lift in her pickup truck as they hitchhiked on the Navajo Nation in northeastern Arizona in 2001. They stabbed Slim 33 times, slit Tiffany’s throat and stoned her to death. They later mutilated both bodies.
Critics accuse Trump of pushing to resume executions after a nearly 20year hiatus in a quest to claim the mantle of lawandorder candidate.
“Today’s decision means we will never know for sure whether antiNative American bias influenced the jury’s decision to sentence Lezmond Mitchell to death,” his lawyers, Jonathan Aminoff and Celeste Bacchi, said in a statement, reacting to the Supreme Court’s decision not to take up the case.
Keith Nelson, who was also convicted of killing a child, is slated to die Friday at the Terre Haute prison, where all federal executions are carried out by a lethal injection of pentobarbital. Nelson’s lawyers say pentobarbital can cause severe pain and so should be deemed unconstitutional.
Deathpenalty advocates say the Trump administration’s restart of executions is bringing justice — too long delayed — to victims.