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Credit, Reuters
Lisa Montgomery to be executed on December 8
For the first time in nearly 70 years, the United States will execute a convicted woman in the federal penal system.
As the Justice Department announced on Saturday, Lisa Montgomery, who strangled a pregnant woman in Missouri in 2004 before slitting her belly, removing and stealing the baby, will receive a lethal injection on Dec. 8.
The last woman to be executed by the US government was Bonnie Heady, executed in a gas chamber in Missouri in 1953, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
The federal execution of criminal Brandon Bernard, who with his accomplices murdered two young religious leaders in 1999, is also scheduled for December.
United States Attorney General William Barr said the crimes for which these people were sentenced to death were “especially heinous murders.”
Who is Lisa Montgomery?
In December 2004, Montgomery drove from Kansas State to Bobbie Jo Stinnett, Missouri, supposedly to buy a dog.
“Once inside the residence, Montgomery attacked and strangled Stinnett, who was eight months pregnant, until the victim lost consciousness,” according to a press release from the Justice Department.
“Using a kitchen knife, Montgomery cut Stinnett’s abdomen, bringing her back to consciousness. A fight ensued and Montgomery strangled Stinnett to death,” he adds.
Credit, Reuters
‘We owe it to the victims and the families,’ said Attorney General William Barr
Montgomery then removed the baby from Stinnett’s body and abducted him. Stinett’s body was found an hour after his death by his hand, which immediately alerted the emergency services.
Montgomery was arrested at her home the next day thanks to advances in computer forensics, which allowed her to be identified by analyzing conversations on Stinett’s computer. The one-day-old baby was handed over to the father’s care.
In 2007, a jury found her guilty of kidnapping and murder and unanimously recommended the death penalty.
Montgomery’s attorneys argued that she had mental disorders due to brain damage suffered from childhood beatings at home and should not be sentenced to death.
What is the difference between federal and state executions?
In the United States justice system, crimes can be tried in federal courts, at the national level, or in state courts, at the regional level.
Certain crimes, such as counterfeiting of currency or theft of correspondence, are automatically prosecuted at the federal level.
The death penalty was outlawed at the state and federal level by a 1972 Supreme Court decision that canceled all existing statutes on the death penalty.
But another 1976 Supreme Court decision allowed states to reinstate the death penalty, and in 1988 the government passed legislation that made it available again at the federal level.
Credit, fake images
This is an execution chamber in Huntsville, Texas
According to data compiled by the Center for Information on the Death Penalty, 78 people were sentenced to death in federal lawsuits between 1988 and 2018, but only three were executed.
Last July, the Trump administration resumed federal executions for the first time in 17 years.
The executions of Montgomery and Bernard will be the eighth and ninth carried out by the federal government this year.
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