Thread by @ACLU

Executions are always wrong.

Last week’s execution of Lezmond Mitchell was a violation of tribal and human rights.

Thread ⬇️

On Wednesday, August 26, the federal government executed Lezmond Mitchell at the Terre Haute Correctional Complex in Indiana.

Lezmond Mitchell’s execution was the 4th federal execution this summer.

The federal government has now executed more people this summer than it has in the last 57 years combined.

Lezmond Mitchell, his two victims, and their families are all members of the Navajo Nation. The Navajo Nation is just that — a nation, separate from the US, with its own government and judicial system.

As a whole, the Navajo Nation opposes the death penalty. Family members of Lezmond Mitchell’s victims also opposed it.

The federal death penalty statute requires the federal government to obtain the approval of the Navajo Nation before seeking the death penalty against one of its tribal members.

But in this case, the US federal government exploited a loophole that allowed them to seek the death penalty under a different statute, and to go forward even over the Navajo Nation’s opposition.

The leaders of the Navajo Nation personally called on President Trump to commute Lezmond Mitchell’s sentence to life without parole. No intervention was made.

In a statement Wednesday evening, Lezmond’s attorneys said: “The very fact that he faced execution despite the tribe’s opposition to a death sentence for him reflected the government’s disdain for tribal sovereignty.”

There are STILL three more federal executions scheduled for this month and next.

We are STILL in a deadly pandemic.

The death penalty is STILL racist, arbitrary, and error-prone.

We MUST end it.