Two inmates are scheduled to die by lethal injection next week at the federal penitentiary in Terre Haute.
Barring any stays from the court, Lezmond Mitchell and Keith Nelson will become the 4th and 5th federal inmates executed in 6 weeks.
Mitchell, who was convicted of killing two people on a Navajo Indian reservation in 2001, is scheduled to be executed August 26 th.
Keith Nelson, who was convicted of kidnapped and raping a girl in 1999, has his execution scheduled for August 28 th.
“I’ve been fighting a lot of years to get justice for her, so for me I feel like this is going to be the easiest time for me, because I don’t have to worry about doing no more court hearings or anything after this,” said Cherri West, mother of Pamela Butler, Nelson’s victim.
Nelson kidnapped Butler from in front of her home while she was rollerblading. West chased after Nelson but was unable to catch him.
“He took a little girl that had her whole future ahead of her, she didn’t get to see it. he didn’t know her and for him to be the last person she saw on the face of this earth, that tears my soul apart,” West said.
While West wants Nelson to face the ultimate punishment, family members of Mitchell’s victims don’t want him to be executed.
The President of the Navajo Nation wrote President Trump last week asking him to commute Mitchell’s sentence to life in prison.
There are questions about whether the federal government has the authority to execute Mitchell because of a law dating back the 1800’s called the Major Crimes Act.
University of Montana law professor Jordan Gross, who specializes in native American legal issues, said the act prevents the government from pursuing a death sentence in a murder case within a reservation’s boundaries.
“The federal government still gets to prosecute that person, but unlike a state it lets the tribal government say, no you may not execute our citizen,” Gross said.
Gross said the government got around the Major Crimes Act by charging Mitchell with carjacking resulting in death, which is not specifically mentioned as a death penalty crime the tribes can opt out of.
“The federal government could have chosen to not charge car-jacking resulting in death. they have two murder charges and a whole bunch of other charges and Mr. Mitchell would spend the rest of his life in a federal penitentiary,” Gross said.
Abe Bonowitz, head of the anti-death penalty group, Death Penalty Action said Mitchell’s case is a prime example of what he calls the unequal application of the death penalty.
“What they are really saying to the vast majority of murder victim family members is your loved one isn’t valuable enough for us to get an execution,” Bonowitz said.
Last month the Trump administration resumed federal executions for the first time since 2003, when three people were executed in a 5 day span.
Two more executions are scheduled for September 22 nd and September 24 th.
