Lisa Montgomery to be put to death in 1st federal execution of a woman since 1953
A convicted woman is scheduled to be put to death by lethal injection in the state of Indiana, the first execution of a female inmate by the US government in almost 70 years.
Attorney General William P. Barr announced on Friday that Lisa Montgomery, who was found guilty of strangling a pregnant woman in Missouri,was one of two inmates scheduled to be executed.
Barr said he directed the head of the Federal Bureau of Prisons to carry out the execution at the US Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, on December 8.
Montgomery is the only woman on the federal government’s death row.
In October 2007, a federal jury found Montgomery guilty of one count of kidnapping resulting in death. Montgomery murdered Bobbie Jo Stinnett by strangulation and kidnapped her unborn baby in 2004, federal prosecutors said.
Montgomery's defense attorneys argued that she had been suffering from delusions when she killed Stinnett, but the federal jury rejected her defense.
The conviction and sentencing were later upheld on appeal.
Kelley Henry, one of the lawyers who represented Montgomery, said her client had endured years of physical, sexual and mental abuse by her mother and others.
Montgomery suffers from complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and is on medication for her episodic psychosis, Henry told the Associated Press in an email statement.
“In the grip of her mental illness, Lisa committed a terrible crime. Yet she immediately expressed profound remorse and was willing to plead guilty in exchange for a life sentence with no possibility of release,” the lawyer said.
“Lisa Montgomery has long accepted full responsibility for her crime, and she will never leave prison,” she said. “But her severe mental illness and the devastating impacts of her childhood trauma make executing her a profound injustice,” Henry added.
The last execution of a female inmate took place in 1953, when Bonnie Heady was put to death in a gas chamber in Missouri, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
The Justice Department on Friday also announced that the death penalty of a man convicted in the 1999 killing of two youth ministers in Texas will be carried out on December 10.
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