Indiana, United States
The United States on Wednesday executed a woman who murdered a pregnant woman to steal her fetus, the first federal execution of a woman in nearly 70 years, in one of the last acts of Donald Trump’s presidency.
“Lisa Montgomery, 52, was executed at Terre Haute Federal Penitentiary, “Indiana Midwestern State, at 1:31 AM (0631 GMT), the Department of Justice announced in a statement.
Montgomery, who murdered a pregnant woman in 2004 to keep her fetus, was given a lethal injection “in accordance with the death penalty unanimously recommended by a federal jury and imposed by the United States District Court of Missouri,” the text continued.
Shortly before, the Supreme Court had dismissed the last appeals of the woman’s lawyers, despite the disagreement of the three progressive justices.
According to them, their client suffers from severe mental disorders, a result of the gang attacks and rapes she suffered as a child, and does not understand the meaning of her punishment, an essential condition for her execution.
A federal judge had ordered a stay of execution on Monday at the request of the defense, but the Justice Department appealed the magistrate’s decision and an appeals court overturned the ruling Tuesday.
The United States Supreme Court, before which two separate appeals were filed, gave reason to the Trump administration’s attorneys in both cases.
Killed pregnant
In 2004, Montgomery, unable to have a new child, identified his victim – a dog breeder – on the Internet and came to his home in Missouri with the excuse to buy him a terrier.
Instead, he strangled her, opened her uterus, took the baby – who survived – and left the 23-year-old in a pool of blood.
Trump, a staunch supporter of the death penalty, ignored a leniency petition filed by Montgomery supporters.
The European Union “deeply regrets” the execution, said European diplomacy spokesman Peter Stano.
– 10 men executed –
Since the resumption of federal executions in the United States in July, after a 17-year hiatus, 10 men have been sentenced to death.
And besides MontgomeryThe Trump administration plans to execute two African Americans this week: Corey Johnson on Thursday and Dustin Higgs on Friday.
But in these cases, there is also uncertainty behind a federal court’s decision to block their executions. The two death row inmates recently contracted COVID-19 and the lethal injection could cause them illegal suffering, the judges said.
Former Terre Haute prison guards, for their part, have asked Acting Justice Minister Jeffrey Rosen to postpone these executions “until prison staff are vaccinated against Covid-19.”
An execution requires dozens of people to remain in a closed environment, an environment conducive to the spread of the virus. For this reason, states have suspended the executions for months.
The government of Trump he has done the opposite and was in favor of continuing the executions as soon as possible before leaving power.
“In the final hours of Trump’s presidency, there is a race to execute people who have been on death row for years or even decades. It’s crazy,” Democratic Senator Dick Durbin said on NPR radio on Monday. , which announced the presentation of a bill to stop federal executions again.
After the Democrats take control of the Senate, it is possible that this text will pass after Joe Biden’s arrival at the White House, who is against the death penalty.