Lisa Montgomery was executed by lethal injection on the night of Tuesday, January 12 to Wednesday, January 13, at a federal penitentiary in Terre-Haute, Indiana. Despite a strong mobilization and last-minute attempts to appeal, the Supreme Court gave the green light to the execution.
Photo taken by Lisa Montgomery’s lawyers /Reuters
Lisa Montgomery, 52, was sentenced to death in 2007. She is the first woman to be executed by the federal government since Bonnie Head was executed in 1953.
Her lawyers, her sister and her defenders had sent a clemency application on her behalf to Donald Trump on 5 January, but he did not respond to their request.
On Monday, 10 January 2021, James Hanlon,federal judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Indiana ordered a stay of execution, stating that there was ample evidence that the convicted woman’s current mental state was far removed from reality and that the court would schedule a subsequent hearing to assess Lisa Montgomery’s mental state.
On several occasions, Lisa Montgomery’s lawyers have appealed to set aside her execution, arguing that their client suffered from psychotic disorders and that she had a mental state incompatible with her execution due to gang rapes and permanent violence suffered in her childhood.
ECPM strongly denounces the execution of Lisa Montgomery as well as this wave of federal executions in the midst of the presidential transition and in the midst of a major health crisis.
Reminder of the facts :
- On Friday, January 1, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia extended the execution date for Lisa Montgomery to January 12, 2021, as her attorneys contracted the coronavirus.
- Her attorneys, her sister, and her attorneys for the defense applied on her behalf to Donald Trump for clemency on 5 January.
- On Monday, 10 January, Judge James Hanlon ordered a stay of execution, stating that there is ample evidence that the convicted woman’s current mental state was far from reality and that the court would schedule a subsequent hearing to assess Lisa Montgomery’s mental state.
- The Supreme Court refused to stay the execution and on the night of Tuesday, 12 January to Wednesday, 13 January 2021, Lisa Montgomery was executed by lethal injection.
Never in 130 years has an American president applied the death penalty so much: the number of federal executions tripled in the United States under Donald Trump’s administration, in the midst of a presidential transition and in the midst of a major health crisis (read our article on the situation of the death penalty in the United States).
