Indiana, United States
The United States on Wednesday executed a woman who had murdered a pregnant woman to steal her fetus, the first federal execution of a woman in nearly 70 years, in one of the last acts of Donald Trump’s presidency.
“Lisa Montgomery, 52, was executed at the Terre Haute Federal Penitentiary, “in the midwestern state of Indiana, at 01:31 (06:31 GMT), the Justice Department said in a statement.
Montgomery, Who in 2004 killed a pregnant woman to keep her fetus, received a lethal injection “in accordance with the death penalty unanimously recommended by a federal jury and imposed by the United States District Court” of Missouri, the text continued.
Shortly before, the Supreme Court had rejected the latest appeals filed by the woman’s lawyers, despite the disagreement of her three progressive magistrates.
According to them, her client suffers from serious mental disorders, as a result of the group assaults and rapes she suffered as a child, and does not understand the meaning of her sentence, an indispensable condition for her to be executed.
A federal judge on Monday had ordered the execution to be suspended at the request of the defense, but the justice ministry appealed the magistrate’s decision and an appeals court overturned the decision on Tuesday.
The U.S. Supreme Court, before which two different appeals had been filed, ruled in both cases against Trump’s government attorneys.
He killed the pregnant woman
In 2004, Montgomery, unable to have a new child, identified his victim – a dog breeder – on the Internet and went to his home in Missouri on the pretext of buying him a terrier.
Instead, he strangled her, opened her uterus, took the baby – who survived – and left the 23-year-old in a pool of blood.
Trump, a staunch supporter of the death penalty, ignored a petition for clemency filed by Montgomery supporters.
The European Union “deeply regrets” the execution, said European diplomacy spokesman Peter Stano.
– 10 men executed –
Since the resumption in July of federal executions in the United States, after a 17-year hiatus, the death penalty has been applied to 10 men.
And in addition to Montgomery, The Trump administration plans to execute two African Americans this week: Corey Johnson on Thursday and Dustin Higgs on Friday.
But in these cases there is also uncertainty following the decision of a federal court to block their executions. The two sentenced to death recently contracted covid-19 and the lethal injection could cause illegal suffering, the judges said.
Former Terre Haute prison guards, meanwhile, have written to acting Secretary of Justice Jeffrey Rosen asking him to postpone these executions “until prison staff are vaccinated against covid-19.”
An execution requires dozens of people to remain in a closed environment, an environment conducive to the spread of viruses. For this reason, states have suspended executions for months.
The government of Trump he has done the opposite and has been in favor of proceeding with the executions as quickly as possible before leaving power.
“In the last hours of Trump’s presidency, there is a race to execute people who have been on death row for years or even decades. It’s crazy,” the Democratic senator told NPR radio on Monday Dick Durbin, who announced the introduction of a bill to halt federal executions again.
After Democrats regained control of the Senate, it is possible that this text will be adopted after the arrival in the White House of Joe Biden, who opposes the death penalty.