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A federal appeals court has cleared the way for the only woman on federal death row to be executed before President-elect Joe Biden takes office.
Lisa Montgomery. Source: Associated Press
The ruling, issued today by a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, found that a lower court judge was wrong when he overturned Lisa Montgomery’s execution date in an order. last week.
United States District Court Judge Randolph Moss had ruled that the Justice Department illegally rescheduled Montgomery’s execution and overturned an order from the director of the Bureau of Prisons that scheduled his death for January 12.
Montgomery was scheduled to be executed at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Indiana, in December, but Moss delayed the execution after his lawyers contracted coronavirus while visiting his client and asked him to extend the time to file a petition for clemency.
Moss concluded that, per his order, the Bureau of Prisons could not even reschedule Montgomery’s execution until at least January 1. But the appeals panel disagreed.
President-elect Joe Biden. Source: Associated Press
Meaghan VerGow, a Montgomery attorney, said her legal team would ask the full appeals court to review the case and said Montgomery should not be executed on January 12.
Montgomery was convicted of killing 23-year-old Bobbie Jo Stinnett in the northwestern Missouri town of Skidmore in December 2004. She used a rope to strangle Stinnett, who was eight months pregnant, and then cut her off. the girl from the womb with a kitchen knife, authorities said. Montgomery took the girl with her and tried to pass her off as his own, prosecutors said.
Montgomery’s attorneys have argued that their client suffers from serious mental illness. Biden opposes the death penalty and his spokesman, TJ Ducklo, has said he will work to end its use. But Biden has not said whether he will stop federal executions after he takes office on January 20.
