A federal appeals court has paved the way for the only woman in the federal death row to be executed in the last days of the Trump administration.
In a ruling Friday, a three-judge court in the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia vacated an execution suspension granted last week to Lisa Montgomery.
The so-called “uterine assault” again faces the death penalty for her 2007 conviction for strangling a pregnant woman in Missouri, and then cut her baby off her belly.
Montgomery is scheduled to die Jan. 12, though his lawyers said they will ask for a full review by the appellate court.
Montgomery will be the first woman executed by the federal government in nearly 70 years.
His death was originally scheduled for lethal injection on December 8 at the American Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana.
But in November, a federal judge temporarily blocked Montgomery’s execution after his lawyers hired COVID-19 while visiting her in a federal lockdown.
Last week, the same judge issued an order suspending Montgomery’s rescheduled execution date. The court ruled Friday that U.S. District Court Judge Randolph Moss made a mistake in doing so.
With publishing cables