A judge could force the Trump administration’s Justice Department to schedule the only woman on federal death row for execution after President-elect Biden takes office.
U.S. District Court Judge Randolph Moss told lawyers representing Lisa Montgomery and the Justice Department that he had withdrawn an order from the director of the Bureau of Prisons to oppose the execution by January 12.
That date was set by Moss in November, after Montgomery’s lawyers contracted the coronavirus and asked for a postponement to file a petition for clemency.
The problem, according to the federal judge, was that the rescheduling took place while there was a stay, something that is prohibited.
“The court accordingly concludes that the director’s order setting a new execution date while the court’s suspension was in effect was not in accordance with the law,” Moss wrote to both lawyers.
Montgomery was found guilty and sentenced to death in 2007 for the 2004 murder of 23-year-old Bobbie Jo Stinnett, who was 8 months pregnant at the time.
Montgomery strangled Stinnett with a rope, grabbed a kitchen knife and cut out and kidnapped the baby. That child survived and was returned to her father.
Montgomery has bipolar disorder, temporal lobe epilepsy, complex post-traumatic stress disorder, dissociative disorder, psychosis, traumatic brain injury, and most likely fetal alcohol syndrome.
She was 13 when she was raped by her stepfather. When her mother was caught sexually assaulting by the man at the age of 14, her mother held a gun to her head, according to appeals from lawyers obtained by The Guardian.
Montgomery’s lawyers want President Trump to change her sentence from death to life in prison, although it is unclear whether the appeal will be heard.
Given the severity of Ms. Montgomery’s mental illness, the sexual and physical torture she has endured throughout her life, and the connection between her trauma and the facts of her crime, we appeal to President Trump to show her mercy and sentence to life imprisonment, ”lawyer Sandra Babcock said in a statement.
Biden has pledged to end the death penalty, but it is unclear what he will do with executions planned by the previous government.
With pole wires