Advertisement

Appeals court denies stay of execution for Lezmond Mitchell in Indiana

Aug. 20 (UPI) -- An appeals court on Thursday denied a stay of execution for a federal death row inmate challenging the U.S. government's plans to use a single drug in its lethal injection protocol.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said that since Lezmond Mitchell is unlikely to succeed in his lawsuit against the government, it would not issue a stay.

Advertisement

Mitchell, 37, is scheduled to die by lethal injection Wednesday at the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Ind. He was sentenced to death for the 2001 murder of two Navajo people -- a woman and her granddaughter -- on reservation land.

Defense attorneys said that because the U.S. government's drug protocol for lethal injections differs from that of Arizona -- the state where the murders occurred -- it violates the Federal Death Penalty Act.

When Attorney General William Barr reinstated federal executions in July 2019, he determined that the U.S. government would use a single drug, pentobarbital, a sedative. Arizona's two-drug cocktail uses midazolam, a sedative, and hydromorphone, an opioid.

Advertisement

The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled against a similar challenge by four other federal death row inmates in April, resulting in the executions of Daniel Lewis Lee, Dustin Lee Honken and Wesley Purkey in July.

Mitchell, who is Navajo, also awaits a ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court on an emergency stay application. His lawyers seek to interview jurors from his trial about whether racial bias played a part in his conviction.

Meanwhile, Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez has sought clemency from President Donald Trump. The Navajo Nation is against the death penalty and argues the U.S. government shouldn't be able to execute Mitchell.

"The Navajo Nation is respectfully requesting a commutation of the death sentence and the imposition of a life sentence for Mr. Mitchell," Nez and Navajo Vice President Myron Lizer said in a letter to Trump on July 31.

"This request honors our religious and traditional beliefs, the Navajo Nation's long-standing position on the death penalty for Native Americans, and our respect for the decision of the victim's family. ... We need to address this issue to move forward in our trust of our federal partners and to continue to work on the importance of protecting our people."

Advertisement

Under the Federal Death Penalty Act, the U.S. government can't seek the death penalty for murder committed on tribal land unless said tribe allows it. The U.S. Attorney's Office in Arizona originally didn't seek the death penalty for Mitchell, but received pressure from then-Attorney General John Ashcroft to do so.

Defense attorneys Jonathan Aminoff and Celeste Bacchi said that since the Navajo Nation opposed the death penalty in Mitchell's case, the federal government used a "loophole" to charge him with a lesser crime -- carjacking resulting in death. This allowed the government to seek the death penalty without tribal approval.

The defense team also accused the U.S. government of misconduct for allegedly jailing and questioning Mitchell for 25 days without providing him a lawyer and preventing Navajos from serving on his jury.

Mitchell and co-defendant Johnny Orsinger were convicted in 2003 for the deaths of Alyce Slim, 63, and her granddaughter Tiffany Lee, 9.

The two men stabbed Slim dozens of times before stealing her vehicle and driving it to another location where they stabbed and beat the girl to death and dismembered their bodies to prevent identification.

Advertisement

Mitchell and Orsinger used the vehicle to commit a robbery and when they were caught by police, Mitchell led them to the buried bodies.

Orsinger, who was a juvenile at the time, was sentenced to life in prison.

If his execution proceeds, Mitchell's will be the fourth federal execution this year and the first Native American to be executed in modern U.S. history, his lawyers said.

Latest Headlines