The federal government’s plan to execute the first female death row inmate in nearly seven decades was placed on hold Thursday because her attorneys contracted coronavirus while visiting her in prison.
Lisa Montgomery, who strangled a pregnant woman and gutted her open to steal her baby 16 years ago, was scheduled to be put to death on Dec. 8 in Indiana — marking the first federal execution of a woman since 1953, when convicted killer Bonnie Heady was executed in a gas chamber.
But two of Montgomery’s attorneys, Kelley Henry and Amy Harwell, are battling a series of COVID-19 symptoms, including neurological symptoms, and are “functionally incapacitated” to complete a clemency petition on her behalf. The pair tested positive after flying to Texas last month to visit their client in prison, they wrote in court papers.
A federal judge on Thursday granted their request, halting the execution until at least the end of the year.
In his ruling, U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss said Montgomery would “lose her statutory right to meaningful representation by counsel in the clemency process” if the execution were to move forward. He also told the attorneys to file a clemency petition by Dec. 24 or get other lawyers to assist.
Montgomery’s legal team said the woman suffers from serious mental illnesses and doesn’t trust many lawyers to handle her case. Henry and Harwell have worked with her for years and have gained her trust, attorney Sandra Babcock told a federal court this week.
The team also claims that Montgomery’s mental health has rapidly deteriorated in recent weeks and is having a tough time in prison, where they say her clothes have been taken away and only a “sheet of paper and a single crayon” were left in her cell.
Montgomery, 52, was convicted in 2007 for killing Bobbie Jo Stinnett in the Missouri town of Skidmore three years earlier and abducting her unborn child. The killer drove from Kansas to the victim’s home that day, used a rope to strangle the 23-year-old woman to death and extracted the baby girl from her womb.
Stinnett was eight months pregnant.
Montgomery’s execution would be the ninth at a federal facility since the Justice Department resumed the practice in July, ending a nearly 20-year hiatus.
With News Wire Services
