A federal appeals court Friday cleared the way for the execution of the only woman on federal death row later this month.
According to The Associated Press, the three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that a lower court judge falsely released the date of execution for Lisa Montgomery last week.
Judge Randolph Moss of the United States Court had delayed the execution originally scheduled for December on the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Ind., after Montgomery’s attorneys contracted COVID-19 on a visit to their client.
Moss banned the Bureau of Prisons from carrying out the execution before the end of the year, and officials are moving it to January 12. But Moss ruled that the agency was also prohibited from moving the date while there was a stay, the AP reported. at that moment.
However, the appeals panel disagreed with this ruling on Friday, paving the way for Montgomery’s execution just days before the president-elect Joe Biden
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The Trump administration resumed federal executions this year after a 17-year hiatus in practice, executing more prisoners by 2020 then all states still executing the death penalty combined, according to a recent report from the Death Penalty Information Center.
Montgomery’s lawyers have tried to prevent her execution, citing serious mental illness, and Biden has repeatedly opposed the death penalty.
While Biden has not indicated whether he will stop federal executions upon taking office, a spokesman, TJ Ducklo, said the former vice president would try to end the practice, the AP reported.
Montgomery was convicted in 2007 of strangulation in 2004 of a woman who was eight months pregnant at the time. Montgomery removed the unborn child, which survived the murder, from Bobbie Jo Stinnet’s womb.
Prosecutors said that Montgomery was back then took the girl and tried to pretend to be her own.