The Supreme Court dismissed tribal objections to a Navajo inmate’s scheduled execution, declining to block the convicted murderer’s punishment.
On Wednesday, the high court issued their decision declining to stop 38-year-old Lezmond Mitchell’s execution without any noted objections from justices. Mitchell was found guilty of stabbing an elderly woman to death before killing her 9-year-old granddaughter by slitting her throat.
“The application for stay of execution of sentence of death presented to Justice Kagan and by her referred to the Court is denied. The petition for a writ of certiorari is denied,” the document reads.
Jared Touchin, a spokesman for the Navajo Nation office of the president and vice president, sought clemency from the Trump administration, asking for Mitchell to be given a life sentence instead of the death penalty. “The Navajo Nation is respectfully requesting a commutation of the death sentence and the imposition of a life sentence for Mr. Mitchell,” Touchin said. “This request honors our religious and traditional beliefs, the Navajo Nation’s long-standing position on the death penalty for Native Americans.”
Mitchell is scheduled to be executed Wednesday evening at the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana.
Last year, Attorney General William Barr ordered the federal government to resume executions, beginning with five men convicted of murdering or raping children and the elderly. They are the first federal punishments of death carried out since 2003.
“Congress has expressly authorized the death penalty through legislation adopted by the people’s representatives in both houses of Congress and signed by the president,” Barr said at the time. “The Justice Department upholds the rule of law.”
Barr ordered a change to the chemical compound used for federal executions, which was a combination of three drugs, to a single drug: phenobarbital. When administered in high doses, the drug causes respiratory arrest. It has been used in 200 executions since 2010 and has been permitted by the high court in the past by states as consistent with the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution.
A federal judge blocked the Justice Department’s decision to move forward with executions last year, but a three-judge panel on the District of Columbia U.S. Court of Appeals sided with the Trump administration in the spring.
“We do share the government’s concern about further delay from multiple rounds of litigation,” the appeals court said in a 2-1 decision. “But the government did not seek immediate resolution of all the plaintiffs’ claims, including the constitutional claims and the claim that the protocol and addendum are arbitrary and capricious under the APA.”
However, the appeals court did note that the executions would be put on hold while litigation in lower court settings continued.
