In the United States for the first time in contemporary history at the Federal level are executed the representative of the indigenous population. It is reported by Time.
37-year-old Desmond Mitchell, the Indian from the Navajo nation, executed on August 26. He is accused of the murder of two people, 19 years ago, he killed his tribeswoman and her granddaughter when he tried to steal a car. The penalty carried out by lethal injection.
Under American law, native Americans who committed crimes on the territory of the reserve can be executed only after the permission of the tribe. However, representatives of the Navajo, including family of those killed, are against the highest measure. Despite protests, U.S. attorney General William Barr believes that “all the courts explicitly condemned Mitchell”, so the sentence corresponds to the law.
“This decision shows utter disregard for the values and sovereignty of the Navajo nation,” said the lawyers of Mitchell.
This is another penalty at the Federal level, which is going to hold after 17 years break. July 16, the U.S. Supreme court decided to apply the death penalty to Wesley Ira Purki (Wesley Ira Purkey), who brutally raped and killed a 16-year-old. Before that, on July 14, was the first in 17 years, the Federal penalty for Daniel Lewis Lee, convicted of the murder of a family of three.
In 1976, the U.S. Supreme court reinstated the death penalty. From that time in American prisons was executed more than 1,5 thousand prisoners, but of these, only three Federal criminals, the other cases belonged to the decision of local authorities. In Federal prisons there are approximately 60 sentenced to capital punishment.
