USA | Judge Delays Execution Of Only Woman On Federal Death Row

A federal judge has temporarily stayed the execution of Lisa M. Montgomery, the only woman on federal death row.

Montgomery was scheduled to be put to death on Dec. 8. Her lawyers asked the court for a delay after they contracted the coronavirus in the midst of preparing her clemency petition.

The order, issued by U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss in Washington, D.C., blocks the government from carrying out her execution before Dec. 31. The injunction was entered into a lawsuit filed on behalf of Montgomery by Cornell Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic.

Montgomery, 52, was a victim of extreme childhood abuse, including incest and sex trafficking, and suffers from serious mental illnesses, according to her lawyers and mental health professionals who have examined her. She was sentenced to death in 2007 for killing a pregnant woman and kidnapping the baby she was carrying, a crime her lawyers say occurred during a psychotic episode.

In October, Montgomery’s lawyers, Amy Harwell and Kelley Henry, learned their client was scheduled for execution by lethal injection at a prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, on Dec. 8. They immediately began traveling to visit her at a women’s medical prison in Fort Worth, Texas, to prepare her clemency application.

Both women contracted the coronavirus soon afterward and have been unable to work since. They are experiencing severe symptoms including issues with memory and concentration, according to a doctor who evaluated their illnesses.

“The district court’s ruling gives Lisa Montgomery a meaningful opportunity to prepare and present a clemency application after her attorneys recover from COVID,” said Sandra Babcock, clinical professor of law at Cornell Law School, who argued the case. “Mrs. Montgomery’s case presents compelling grounds for clemency, including her history as a victim of gang rape, incest, and child sex trafficking, as well as her severe mental illness. She will now have the opportunity to present this evidence to the President with a request that he commute her sentence to life imprisonment.”

Montgomery’s lawyers have also filed a petition with the Office of the Pardon Attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice asking President Donald Trump to delay their client’s execution until they are well enough to prepare her clemency application.

“We should not have to choose between our lives and our client’s life,” they wrote to Trump. “We did not ask to be put in this situation. We did our jobs and got sick.”

The Trump administration restarted federal executions this summer after an almost 20-year lapse. Three more executions, including Montgomery’s, are scheduled to take place before Trump leaves office.

President-elect Joe Biden, who is set to take office on Jan. 20, 2021, has said he will work to end the federal death penalty.

Source: Huffington Post, Staff, November 19, 2020

🚩 | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com.

Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help us keep this blog up and running! DONATE!

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde

Texas | Jury recommends death penalty for man convicted of killing San Benito police lieutenant

A Cameron County jury recommended the death penalty for Rogelio Martinez for killing a San Benito police lieutenant during a police chase in Brownsville. Martinez stared forward as the judge announced the recommendation. Lt. Milton Resendez's family told Martinez in court that their lives will never be the same. Resendez's wife and siblings walked past cameras and declined to speak with reporters. Inside the courtroom, where no audio or video recording was allowed, Resendez's sister Jackie raised her voice at Martinez during impact statements.

Alabama | Brian Martin sentenced to death in killing of Sheffield Sgt. Nick Risner

Brian Lansing Martin was sentenced to death Monday for killing Sheffield Police Sgt. Nick Risner, whose death prompted Alabama lawmakers to restrict early-release credits for inmates convicted of killing someone with a deadly weapon. A Colbert County judge formally imposed the sentence Oct. 26, following a jury’s unanimous recommendation in September, WAFF reported. “Today’s sentence represents justice and accountability for the murder of Sergeant Nick Risner,” Colbert County District Attorney Hal Hughston said in a statement quoted by the station.

Florida | Bunnell man sentenced to death for fatally stabbing wife outside their home in 2024

A Flagler County judge sentenced Jermaine Mandell Williams Sr. to death Monday for stabbing his wife outside their Bunnell home in 2024. Williams, 34, was convicted of 1st-degree murder in July. Jurors deliberated about 20 minutes before finding him guilty and later voted 11-1 to recommend the death penalty. The attack happened Aug. 2, 2024. Surveillance video and testimony showed Williams went inside the home, returned with an 8-inch chef’s knife and attacked his wife, Yolonda Charmaine Williams, in the street, according to court and prosecution accounts. She was stabbed 19 to 20 times and later died at a hospital.

Indiana governor rejects brain scans for death row inmate ahead of execution

Gov. Mike Braun is still weighing Jeffrey Weisheit’s clemency request, however. Gov. Mike Braun’s administration will not allow death row inmate Jeffrey Weisheit to undergo additional brain scans before his scheduled execution next week. The decision follows weeks of legal efforts by his attorneys to obtain additional medical evidence for his clemency case. Braun’s general counsel, Stephanie Flittner, met with Weisheit’s legal team Wednesday to discuss the testing and his pending clemency request.

‘I’m Not Incompetent’ Christa Pike’s execution doctor, Mark Fowler, speaks.

Dr. Mark Fowler knew something was wrong after 45 minutes passed without word from the warden. In most cases, executions take no more than ten minutes. When he was summoned from his waiting room to the chamber next door, he saw 50-year-old Christa Pike, who’d received two lethal doses of pentobarbital that night, strapped to a gurney, gasping for air. “She’s not dead,” Fowler recalls the warden saying. “I thought, Well, in human beings there’s a spectrum of responses to medications and we’ll give it a few more minutes,” he says. Another half-hour passed. Fowler worried she might survive with irreversible brain damage. “She’s going to be in a permanent vegetative state with a quarter-million dollars in medical expenses.” He came back in and diagnosed her as comatose. The deputy commissioner ordered the execution to stop. Now, instead of taking part in Pike’s death, Fowler’s job was to bring her back to life.

François Mitterrand, the Justice Minister Who Sent 45 Men to the Guillotine

The socialist president celebrated for abolishing the death penalty in France sent 45 condemned men to the guillotine when he was Minister of Justice. In French political history, François Mitterrand is the father of the historic victory of May 1981. He remains associated with one of the greatest moral laws of the Fifth Republic: the definitive end of capital executions, carried through with Robert Badinter in the autumn of 1981.

Indiana Parole Board hears testimony on clemency for man scheduled for Nov. 5 execution

Jeffrey Weisheit set his house on fire in 2010, killing his girlfriend’s two young children he was watching. The Indiana Parole Board will now make a recommendation in the coming days to Governor Mike Braun on whether to grant clemency to condemned killer Jeffrey Weisheit. Jeffrey is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on Nov. 5 for the 2010 murder of his girlfriend's 2 children in Vanderburgh County.

Medical experts shocked by Tennessee team’s ‘malpractice’ in Christa Pike’s failed execution

New details of IV team’s attempts to find a vein shared by Pike’s lawyer ‘shocked and disturbed’ practitioners Medical experts have expressed shock at the apparent incompetence shown by Tennessee’s execution team during the failed lethal injection of Christa Pike , the prisoner who survived a normally fatal dose of pentobarbital, which they say would be considered medical malpractice in any other setting.

Saudi Arabia executes woman, 'terrorists', 'indecent' couple, and juvenile offenders

Saudi Arabia carried out a series of executions in mid-October, including that of a woman convicted of killing her mother and attempting to kill her sister, alongside five men in the Eastern Province. Official statements described the five as terrorists; human rights groups described them as political prisoners sentenced under discretionary (ta’zir) penalties, one of whom was a child at the time of the alleged acts. The cases illustrate the kingdom’s continued use of the death penalty under Sharia, its stated commitment to public order and justice, and criticism from human rights organizations over the scope of capital punishment.

Iran | Executions in Karaj, Sabzevar, Mashhad, Rasht, Kashan, Shahrekord

Iranian authorities have executed two prisoners, Amrollah Seiri and Reza Talebi, in Karaj and Sabzevar Central Prisons. Both were sentenced to death for “premeditated murder,” with Seiri spending 14 years in prison before his execution. According to information received by the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, Seiri (Hadavandi), a Lor man from Farunabad in Pakdasht County, Tehran Province, was executed in Karaj Central Prison on Wednesday morning, October 28, 2026.

Death Penalty News

Search This Blog