![]() ![]() District Judge James Patrick Hanlon, who had halted Montgomery’s execution before the stay was overturned on appeal, cited defense experts who alleged Montgomery suffered from depression, borderline personality disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder. She said the issue at the core of the legal arguments are not whether she knew the killing was wrong in 2004 but whether she fully grasps why she is slated to be executed now. Henry balked at that idea, citing extensive testing and brain scans that supported the diagnosis of mental illness. ![]() Montgomery’s legal team says she suffered “sexual torture,” including gang rapes, as a child, permanently scarring her emotionally and exacerbating mental-health issues that ran in her family.Īt trial, prosecutors accused Montgomery of faking mental illness, noting that her killing of Stinnett was premeditated and included meticulous planning, including online research on how to perform a C-section. But both appeals were lifted, allowing the execution of the only female on federal death row to go forward.Īs the only woman on federal death row, Montgomery had been held in a federal prison in Texas and was brought to Terre Haute on Monday night. Montgomery took the child with her and attempted to pass the girl off as her own.Īn appeals court granted Montgomery a stay of execution Tuesday, shortly after another appeals court lifted an Indiana judge’s ruling that found she was likely mentally ill and couldn’t comprehend she would be put to death. ![]() She used a rope to strangle Stinnett, who was eight months pregnant, and then cut the baby girl from the womb with a kitchen knife. Montgomery killed 23-year-old Bobbie Jo Stinnett in the northwest Missouri town of Skidmore in 2004. Johnson, convicted of killing seven people related to his drug trafficking in Virginia, and Higgs, convicted of ordering the murders of three women in Maryland, both tested positive for COVID-19 last month. Montgomery was the first of the final three federal inmates scheduled to die before next week’s inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden, who is expected to discontinue federal executions.īut a federal judge for the District of Columbia halted the scheduled executions later this week of Corey Johnson and Dustin Higgs in a ruling Tuesday. It came after hours of legal wrangling before the Supreme Court cleared the way for the execution to move forward. “Lisa Montgomery’s execution was far from justice.” “The government stopped at nothing in its zeal to kill this damaged and delusional woman,” Henry said. “Everyone who participated in the execution of Lisa Montgomery should feel shame.” “The craven bloodlust of a failed administration was on full display tonight,” Montgomery’s attorney, Kelley Henry said in a statement. At 1:30 a.m., an official in black gloves with a stethoscope walked into the room, listened to her heart and chest, then walked out. Montgomery lay on a gurney in the pale-green execution chamber, her glasses on and her grayish brown hair spilling over a green medical pillow. A few minutes later, her midsection throbbed for a moment, but quickly stopped. As the lethal injection began, Montgomery kept licking her lips and gasped briefly as pentobarbital, a lethal drug, entered her body through IVs on both arms. She tapped her fingers nervously for several seconds, a heart-shaped tattoo on her thumb, showed no signs of distress, and quickly closed her eyes. ![]() “No,” Montgomery responded in a quiet, muffled voice. As the execution process began, a woman standing over Montgomery’s shoulder leaned over, gently removed Montgomery’s face mask and asked her if she had any last words. As a curtain was raised in the execution chamber, Montgomery looked momentarily bewildered as she glanced at journalists peering at her from behind thick glass. ![]()
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