Federal District Judge Randolph Moss overturned an order from the U.S. director of prisons, which had set for Jan. 12 the execution of the only woman in the death row in the country, who could receive a new date for after Joe Biden’s presidential inauguration.
Lisa Montgomery was found guilty of strangling an eight-month-pregnant woman and then using a kitchen knife to pull a baby out of her womb.
The federal judge alleged that the Justice Department illegally rescheduled the execution, which could result in President Donald Trump’s government setting the new date.
clemency
The woman’s execution was initially scheduled for this month at the Federal Penitentiary Complex in Terre Haute, Indiana, but Moss postponed it after defense attorneys asked her to extend the period for filing a clemency petition. Lawyers contracted the coronavirus when they visited their defendant.
Moss had banned the Prisons Office from enforcing the death penalty against Lisa Montgomery before the end of the year and authorities rescheduled it for Jan. 12, but the judge ruled Wednesday that the agency was also banned from rescheduling. execution during the current deferral.
“The court, therefore, concludes that‘ it does not adhere to the law ’the director’s order to set a new execution date while a court adjournment is in effect,” Moss wrote.
A Justice Department spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for him to make statements on the matter.
Montgomery was found guilty in December 2004 of killing Bobbie Jo STINNETT, 23, in Skidmore, northwest Missouri. Montgomery used a rope to strangle STINNETT, who was eight months pregnant, and then with a kitchen knife pulled a baby out of her womb, according to authorities.
According to prosecutors, Montgomery pulled the baby out of STINNETT’s body, took her away, and tried to pass her off as his daughter. Montgomery’s defense has argued that she suffers from severe mental disorders.
In general, according to the guidelines of the Department of Justice, a death row inmate must receive 20 days notice in advance that he will be executed. Due to the judge’s order, if the Justice Department decides to reschedule the date for January it would mean that execution must be set for after Biden takes over the presidency on January 20th.
opposed
A Biden spokesman told AP that the president-elect “opposes the death penalty now and in the future” and as president will seek to end its implementation. However, Biden representatives did not say whether there would be a pause in executions immediately when he takes over the White House.
“Because of the severity of Ms. Montgomery’s mental disorders, the sexual and physical torture she suffered in her life, and the connection between her trauma and the facts of her crime, we ask President Trump to grant her clemency and commute his sentence to life imprisonment, “one of the defense attorneys, Sandra Babcock, said in a statement.
Two federal inmates have scheduled their execution for January but after they tested positive for coronavirus their lawyers requested that they be postponed.