The Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday night that it ordered “uterine invader” Lisa Montgomery to be sentenced to death, the day after a federal judge in Indiana suspended her execution due to her mental health condition.
O six to three votes, means that Montgomery will become the first woman to be executed by the federal government in almost 70 years.
The decision comes eight days before President Trump, who has been on a wave of executions since last year, stepped down. President-elect Joe Biden is strongly opposed to the death penalty.
On Monday, federal judge Patrick Hanlon blocked Montgomery’s execution by citing his deteriorating mental health condition.
“As discussed elsewhere in this order, Ms. Montgomery was diagnosed with physical brain disabilities and multiple mental illnesses, and three experts are of the opinion that, based on the conduct and symptoms reported to them by the lawyer, Ms. Perg’s perception Montgomery’s reality is currently distorted and undermined, ”wrote Hanlon in his decision.
Montgomery was originally scheduled to die by lethal injection on December 8, but in November, a federal judge temporarily blocked her execution after her lawyers hired COVID-19 while visiting her at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Indiana.
In 2007, Montgomery was convicted of the murder of Bobbie Jo Stinnett, 23, in Missouri. She strangled Stinnett with a rope before opening it and running away with the baby.