PHOENIX (AP) — Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez has asked President Donald Trump to commute the death sentence of a Navajo man convicted in the 2001 killing of a fellow tribal member and her 9-year-old granddaughter.
Nez cited the tribe’s longstanding opposition to the death penalty in a July 31 letter to Trump that asks for Lezmond Mitchell’s sentence to be reduced to life in prison.
Mitchell is the only Native American on federal death row. Tribal officials and even the victims’ family opposed his death penalty, despite the grisly nature of the killings. The U.S. Justice Department declined to comment on the clemency request.
