The federal government early Wednesday morning executed the first woman in 67 years, following a series of late-night Supreme Court interventions.
The woman, Lisa Montgomery, died by lethal injection at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Indiana, hours after the high court issued a number of orders throwing out stays on her sentence. Montgomery’s execution was the latest of several last-minute death penalty sentences to be carried out in the waning days of the Trump administration.
The court, which made its decision in a 6-3 split, with the liberal justices dissenting, first declined to hear an appeal from Montgomery against the Justice Department. It then threw out a stay on the sentence given by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, given earlier this year. The court also denied a separate application from Montgomery for a stay. And in the final hours of Wednesday, it vacated a stay given by the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals, completely clearing the path for her execution.
Montgomery was sentenced to death in 2008 for a crime she committed in 2004. She kidnapped a pregnant woman from Missouri, killed her, and cut the fetus out from her womb, whom she then claimed as her own child.
In the months leading up to her execution, Montgomery developed a sympathetic following that lobbied for a stay on her sentence. Her attorneys secured a delay in November when she tested positive for the coronavirus. At the time, her attorneys argued that because she has “several mental disabilities that frequently cause her to lose touch with reality … it is vital that counsel be able to meet with Mrs. Montgomery in person to evaluate her mental status.”
After her execution, Kelley Henry, one of her attorneys, accused the Trump Justice Department of pursuing her execution unnecessarily.
“The government stopped at nothing in its zeal to kill this damaged and delusional woman,” she said in a statement. “Lisa Montgomery’s execution was far from justice.”
The federal government is scheduled to execute two more people, Cory Johnson and Dustin Higgs, later in the week. Both of their sentences have been halted by federal judges, who pointed to the fact that the two men are recovering from the coronavirus. The Trump administration is expected to appeal the stays.
