Native American on fed death row to be executed

The only Native American on federal death row is set to die Wednesday for the slayings of a 9-year-old and her grandmother nearly two decades ago, though many Navajos are hoping for last-minute intervention by President Donald Trump to halt the execution.

If Lezmond Mitchell is put to death on schedule at the federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, he’ll be the fourth federal inmate executed this year. That means the federal government under the pro-death penalty president will have carried out more executions in 2020 than in the previous 56 years combined.

Mitchell, 38, and an accomplice were convicted of killing Tiffany Lee and 63year-old 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.

The Navajo government asked Trump to commute Mitchell’s sentence on grounds his execution would violate Navajo culture and sovereignty. A federal judge in Washington, D.C., denied an attempt by Mitchell’s lawyers for a last-minute court intervention. There was no immediate word on whether they would appeal the ruling to the circuit court, and ultimately the U.S. Supreme Court, which declined late Tuesday to step in and halt the execution. The first three federal executions in 17 years went ahead in July after similar legal maneuvers failed.

Critics accuse Trump of pushing to resume executions after a nearly 20-year hiatus in a quest to claim the mantle of law-and-order candidate. If Mitchell’s execution goes ahead as planned, it would happen on the third night of the GOP convention.