Usa, green light for the execution of the first woman in 70 years, the only one sentenced to death

A United States Court of Appeals has given the green light to the execution of Lisa Montgomery, the only woman currently under sentence of death in the country: if the sentence is carried out, on January 12 Montgomery will become the first inmate of a federal prison it will be executed in almost 70 years.

The woman was sentenced to death for strangling a pregnant woman in 2004 and extracting the fetus from her body, which she later abducted. During the trial the defense had denounced the madness of the woman, but the thesis was not accepted.

According to international media reports, the execution was originally scheduled for last month, but was called off after one of the woman’s lawyers fell ill from Covid. The Justice Department then set the new date for January 12, but Montgomery’s attorneys argued that the date could not be set while a stay of execution was in effect.

Therefore, a judge of a juvenile court had agreed with the defense, but yesterday three judges of the Washington DC Court of Appeals reversed their decision, giving the green light to the execution. The woman’s lawyers have already announced that they will appeal their decision.

The last woman to be executed by the United States government was Bonnie Heady, who died in a gas chamber in Missouri in 1953.

The New York Times some time ago reconstructed the story as follows:

In 2004, Ms. Montgomery told friends and family that she was pregnant, despite having undergone a sterilization procedure years earlier, according to court documents. In December of that year, she contacted Bobbie Jo Stinnett, 23, eight months pregnant, under the pretext of wanting to buy a rat terrier puppy from a litter that Ms. Stinnett had advertised online. Ms. Montgomery, who was 36 at the time, went to Ms. Stinnett’s home in Northwest Missouri, where she strangled her and cut her baby’s abdomen. Ms. Montgomery then returned home and tried to pass off the baby as hers.

Montgomery later confessed to the crime. His attorney Kelley Henry said Friday that his client accepted responsibility for the crime, “but his severe mental illness and the devastating impacts of his childhood trauma make the execution a profound injustice.” Henry said the abuses Ms. Montgomery suffered as a child, including sex trafficking by her mother and gang rape by adult men, “exacerbated a genetic predisposition to mental illness inherited from both sides of the country. her family, “including a complex post-traumatic stress disorder.” Few human beings have experienced the kind of torture and trauma that her alcoholic and mentally ill mother inflicted on Lisa Montgomery, “said Ms. Henry.