As the U.S. government prepares to execute Lezmond Mitchell, the only Native American man on federal death row, the leaders of the Navajo Nation have asked President Trump to reduce Mitchell's sentence to life imprisonment, article available here.
Lezmond Mitchell was put to death Wednesday evening at the federal prison in Terre Haute, information available here.
The federal government plans on executing two people this week: Lezmond Mitchell on Wednesday, August 26, 2020 and Keith Dwayne Nelson on Friday, August 28, 2020.
Two more people are scheduled to be killed in the same week in September: William Emmett LeCroy on September 22, 2020, and Christopher Andre Vialva on September 24. The executions will take place at the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana.
Today, Attorney General William P. Barr today directed the Federal Bureau of Prisons to schedule the execution of Lezmond Mitchell, the only Native American on federal death row (article available here). The execution is scheduled to occur on August 26, 2020, at the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana. Tribal leaders and the victim's family oppose the death penalty.
As the U.S. government prepares to execute Lezmond Mitchell, the only Native American man on federal death row, the leaders of the Navajo Nation have asked President Trump to reduce Mitchell's sentence to life imprisonment, article available here.
Lezmond Mitchell, the only Native American on federal death row is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to put his scheduled August 26, 2020 execution on hold while he seeks review of a lower court decision over potential racial bias in his case, additional information available here. Previous posts on this case are here and here.
The Justice Department has executed Dustin Lee Honken, 52, in Terre Haute, Ind., the third federal inmate put to death by the government this week. A coroner pronounced him dead by lethal injection at 4:36 p.m. ET Friday (article available here).
For his last words, he turned to the writings of a Jesuit priest, Gerard Manley Hopkins, reciting lines from the poem Heaven-Haven.
For the second time this week, a man was executed by lethal injection inside a federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana. Wesley Ira Purkey was strapped to a gurney inside the execution chamber. A prison official removed a mask from Purkey's face and asked him if he wanted to make a final statement. He leaned his head up slightly from the gurney and said: "I deeply regret the pain and suffering I caused to Jennifer's family. I am deeply sorry."
Wesley Ira Purkey was scheduled for execution tonight (Wednesday, July 15, 2020) at the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, where Daniel Lewis Lee was put to death on Tuesday (see previous post on circumstances surrounding Mr. Lee’s execution here). The U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., did not rule on whether Purkey is competent but said the Court needs to evaluate the claim.
The following is a statement from Ruth Friedman, attorney for Daniel Lee: