The execution of the only woman on federal death row has been halted after a federal judge said the Department of Justice has unlawfully opposed the execution.
Lisa Montgomery was set to be executed this month, but US court judge Randolph Moss has delayed the execution after Montgomery’s lawyers contracted the coronavirus while visiting their client, The Associated Press reported.
Moss banned the Bureau of Prisons from carrying out the execution before the end of the year and officials are moving the execution to Jan. 12, but Moss ruled Wednesday that the agency was also prohibited from moving the date while there was a stay, according to to the AP.
“The court accordingly concludes that the director’s order to set a new execution date while the court’s suspension was in effect was not in accordance with the law,” Moss reportedly wrote.
A spokesman for Justice did not immediately respond to comments.
Based on the order, the execution date cannot be moved to at least January 1, which means that the date can be postponed after the inauguration day when the President-elect Joe Biden
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Montgomery was convicted in 2007 of strangulation in 2004 of a woman who was eight months pregnant at the time. Montgomery removed the unborn child, which survived the murder, from Bobbie Jo Stinnet’s womb.
A spokesperson for Biden told the AP that the president-elect “opposes the death penalty now and in the future” and would work during his presidency to end its use in office.
But Biden’s representatives have not said whether the execution would be interrupted immediately once Biden is in office, the AP noted.
Dozens of Democrats signed a letter headed by Rep. Ayanna Pressley
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In addition, a group of Democratic senators is pushing for an investigation into the Trump administration’s decision to end a 17-year hiatus in federal executions this year.
According to a recent report from the Death Penalty Information Center, the federal government executed more inmates in 2020 than all the states still carrying out the death penalty combined.