In the United States, for the first time in nearly 70 years, a woman has been executed by federal justice. Lisa Montgomery’s death sentence was carried out today in the Terre Haute correctional facility in Indiana, the US Department of Justice said.
The Supreme Court had recently cleared the way for the execution. The 52-year-old was sentenced to death for the gruesome murder of a pregnant woman.
Conviction 2007
A court in the state of Indiana suspended the execution of the sentence on Monday because of doubts about Montgomery’s state of mind. However, an appeals court overturned the decision a day later. The Supreme Court in Washington finally approved the authorities today.
Montgomery had strangled a heavily pregnant woman in 2004 and then cut the baby out of her belly. One day after the crime, she was arrested at her home in Skidmore, Missouri, around 250 kilometers from the crime scene.
She had the stolen baby who survived the gruesome act with her. Before she confessed, she told the police and her husband that she gave birth to the girl herself. Montgomery was sentenced to death in 2007.
Executions postponed due to CoV
Because of the Covid 19 illness of two murderers sentenced to death, a US federal court ordered the postponement of the executions. The judge justified the decision yesterday by saying that the two men should be given the opportunity to recover.
The Ministry of Justice should therefore postpone the executions until at least March 16. The date is after the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden, who opposes the death penalty.
The prisoners were to be executed in the coming days. Her lawyers had claimed that the two men’s damaged lungs would cause undue agony while they were being given the fatal injections.
