On the 13th local time, the US federal government executed a female prisoner who was sentenced to death for murdering a pregnant woman and kidnapping a fetus in her womb in 2004. It was the first time since 1953 that the U.S. federal government had executed a woman prisoner.
According to the Associated Press reported on the 13th, 52-year-old female prisoner Lisa Montgomery was executed by injection in the complex of the Terre Haute Federal Prison in Indiana, and was pronounced dead at 1:31 a.m. on the 13th.
Before the execution, a female staff member standing next to Montgomery leaned over and gently removed Montgomery's mask and asked her if she still had a last word.
"No(NO)," Montgomery replied quietly and in a low voice. Other than that, she didn't say anything more.
Last November, the Trump administration resumed federal executions that had been suspended for 17 years, and Montgomery was the 11th death row inmate to be executed since then.
Montgomery in Prison video screenshot
Screenshot of the Associated Press report
"The government spared no effort to kill this injured and mentally ill woman." "Lisa Montgomery's execution is far from just." Montgomery's lawyer, Kelley Henry, said in a statement on the 13th.
Henry made a final attempt shortly before his execution. Henry argued that Montgomery had brain damage and suffered from a serious mental illness that could not be executed. The lawyer also said Montgomery suffered physical and sexual abuse on several occasions as a child. Henry's struggle also led a federal judge in Indiana to announce a moratorium on the 11th of this month for a court hearing.
However, the New York Times said on the 13th that the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals revoked this decision on the 12th. The court's judges also cited Supreme Court jurisprudence to stress that last-minute suspensions of executions were extremely rare and not the norm.
In 2004, in Skidmore, northwestern Missouri, the fertile Montgomery brutally murdered a 23-year-old pregnant woman.
At that time, Montgomery, 36, came to the pregnant woman's house under the guise of buying a puppy. Upon arrival, Montgomery strangled the 8-month-pregnant woman with a rope and used a knife to cut open the pregnant woman's stomach and remove the baby girl in her abdomen.
Montgomery kidnapped the baby girl and tried to make the girl his own. The day after the crime, on December 17, 2004, Montgomery was arrested.
The kidnapped girl in her womb was lucky enough to survive. Last month, on the anniversary of her mother's death, she turned 16.
Video screenshots of Montgomery and her photos of her youth
Montgomery is the only female prisoner on death row in a federal prison. Women make up a very low percentage of death row in U.S. federal prisons. The New York Times quoted an agency as reporting that only 2 percent of federal death row inmates are women. After Montgomery's execution, there were no women on death row in the Federal Federation. Montgomery was also the first female prisoner executed by the U.S. federal government since 1953.
Montgomery's execution was reportedly scheduled for last month. But after two of her lawyers contracted the coronavirus, the judge postponed the trial and the Justice Department rescheduled the execution.
Before Biden took office, Trump appeared eager to execute multiple death row inmates in federal prisons. The New York Times reported on November 18 last year that US President-elect Joe Biden had said that it would overturn the Trump administration's decision to resume the federal death penalty. But before Biden takes office, in the final weeks of Trump's administration, the Justice Department will execute two men and one woman.
This woman is Montgomery. CNN said on the 13th that the US federal government plans to execute two more executions this week, executing Corey Johnson on the 14th and Dustin Higgs on the 15th. However, because the two men are still in the recovery period of COVID-19, both executions have been suspended by federal court judges.
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