US executes first woman on federal death row in nearly 70 years

Lisa Montgomery was convicted of the 2007 murder of 23-year-old Bobbie Jo Stinnett

The US government has executed convicted murderer Lisa Montgomery, the only woman on federal death row, after the Supreme Court overturned a stay on her death sentence. Montgomery, 52, was put to death by lethal injection early on Wednesday at the federal prison complex in Indiana, and was pronounced dead at 1.31am local time. She was the 11th prisoner to receive a lethal injection in the complex since July when Donald Trump, a longtime supporter of capital punishment dating back to before his presidency, resumed federal executions following a 17-year hiatus. Montgomery was convicted in Missouri in 2007 of kidnapping and strangling 23-year-old Bobbie Jo Stinnett, who was eight months pregnant at the time. After she killed Stinnett, Montgomery cut the baby from her womb and attempted to pass it off as her own in a custody battle. The Supreme Court lifted an appeals court stay that had blocked the execution, and it denied a request for a stay filed by Montgomery's attorneys that raised mental illness concerns. "The craven bloodlust of a failed administration was on full display tonight," Kelley Henry, an attorney for Montgomery, said in a statement.

“Everyone who participated in the execution of Lisa Montgomery should feel shame.

“The government stopped at nothing in its zeal to kill this damaged and delusional woman. Lisa Montgomery’s execution was far from justice.”

Henry argued that Montgomery suffered from severe mental illness which was "exacerbated by the lifetime of sexual torture she suffered at the hands of caretakers," and her lawyers wished to attempt to prove her incompetence. The legal team for Montgomery argued that she should face life in prison instead of execution. Montgomery was the first of three final federal inmates scheduled to die before Joe Biden's inauguration next week, who is expected to discontinue federal executions. In a ruling Tuesday, courts ruled to stay the two other federal executions scheduled for this week, those of Dustin Higgs and Corey Johnson.