A federal appeals court paved the way for the only woman on federal death row to be executed in the last days of the Trump administration.
In a decision on Friday, a panel of three judges from the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia canceled a suspension of the execution that had been granted to Lisa Montgomery last week.
The so-called “womb invader” is again facing the death penalty for her 2007 conviction for strangling a pregnant woman to death in Missouri and then cutting her unborn baby out of her womb.
Montgomery is scheduled to be sentenced to death on Jan. 12 – although her lawyers have said they will seek a full review of the appeals court.
Montgomery will be the first woman executed by the federal government in almost 70 years.
She was initially scheduled to die by lethal injection on December 8 at the United States Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana.
But in November, a federal judge temporarily blocked Montgomery’s execution after her lawyers hired COVID-19 while visiting her in a federal prison.
Last week, the same judge issued an order suspending Montgomery’s rescheduled execution date. The panel ruled on Friday that US District Court Judge Randolph Moss was wrong to do so.
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