The Supreme Court sided with the Tump administration on Tuesday afternoon to rule that Lisa Montgomery, the only woman on the federal death row, should be executed.
Why it’s important: Montgomery, 52, will become the first federal woman incarcerated to die in 67 years.
Note: A federal judge on Tuesday granted Montgomery an execution suspension hours before he died from lethal injection at a federal prison complex in Indiana.
- Montgomery’s lawyers had argued that the Eighth Amendment prohibits the execution of people like Montgomery who, “because of their serious mental illness or brain damage, do not understand the basis of their executions.”
Details: The Supreme Court voted 6-3 in favor of the ruling. The three liberal judges disagreed.
The big picture: Federal executions had been halted for 16 years, until the Trump administration resumed the federal death penalty last July, notes Oriana Gonzalez of Axios.
- Montgomery was one of three inmates the Justice Department planned to execute this week, a week before President-elect Biden took office, who is against the federal death penalty.
Background: Montgomery was convicted in 2004 of the murder of 23-year-old Bobbie Jo Stinnett, who was eight months pregnant, cutting her baby from the stomach and kidnapping the child, who survived the attack.
In depth: Trump’s last word on executions
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