A judge can force the Trump administration’s Justice Department to schedule the execution of the only woman on federal death row for when President-elect Biden takes office.
US District Court Judge Randolph Moss told lawyers representing Lisa Montgomery and the Justice Department that he was withdrawing an order from the Bureau of Prisons director who rescheduled the execution for January 12.
The date was set by Moss in November, after Montgomery’s lawyers contracted the coronavirus and asked for an extension to file a clemency request.
The problem, according to the federal judge, is that reprogramming was done during the suspension, which is prohibited.
“The Court, therefore, concludes that the Director’s order setting a new date of execution while the Court’s suspension was in effect ‘was not in accordance with the law,'” Moss wrote to both lawyers.
Montgomery was sentenced and sentenced to death in 2007 for the murder of Bobbie Jo Stinnett in 2004, who was 8 months pregnant at the time.
Montgomery strangled Stinnett with a rope, before taking a kitchen knife and cutting and kidnapping the baby. This child survived and was returned to his father.
Montgomery has bipolar disorder, temporal lobe epilepsy, complex post-traumatic stress disorder, dissociative disorder, psychosis, traumatic brain injury and, probably, fetal alcohol syndrome.
She was 13 when she started being raped by her stepfather. When she was caught by her mother at age 14 and was sexually abused by the man, according to lawyers’ resources obtained by The Guardian, her mother pointed a gun at her head.
Montgomery’s lawyers want President Trump to commute his death sentence to life in prison, although it is unclear whether the appeal is being considered.
“Given the severity of Ms. Montgomery’s mental illness, the sexual and physical torture she endured throughout her life and the connection between her trauma and the facts of her crime, we call on President Trump to grant his mercy and commute his sentence for life imprisonment, ”said lawyer Sandra Babcock in a statement.
Biden has promised to end the death penalty, but it is unclear what he will do with the executions scheduled by the previous government.
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