The Supreme Court on Wednesday paved the way for the federal execution of Lisa Montgomery – the only woman on federal death row in the United States.
Within hours, the Supreme Court released two stays to allow the federal Bureau of Prisons to put Montgomery to death.
She will be the first federally executed woman in the US since 1953.
The Supreme Court decision came a day after a federal judge in Indiana granted Montgomery a stay of execution on mental health grounds.
Montgomery, the so-called “uterine dilator,” was convicted in 2007 of the murder of 23-year-old Bobbie Jo Stinnett in the town of Skidmore in northwestern Missouri.
She used a rope to strangle Stinnett, who was eight months pregnant, and then cut the girl from the womb with a kitchen knife, authorities said.
Montgomery’s lawyers have argued that she is mentally ill and cannot conceive that she would be put to death.
With pole wires