Opinion: Lisa Montgomery's federal execution may be death knell for death penalty

All year long in her cell in Texas, Lisa Montgomery crochets angels and Christmas tree ornaments and elaborate nativity scenes overrun with more angels. On Christmas Eve, her attorneys called her to say that a judge in Washington, D.C., had ruled that a new execution date for her couldn’t even be scheduled until Jan. 1 at the earliest.

Then, she’d have to be given the legally required 20 days notice of that new date, according to the ruling from D.C. District Judge Randolph Moss.

It wasn’t clear how much of this Montgomery really understood: “Her connection with reality is fairly tenuous,” especially under stress, one of her lawyers, Sandra Babcock, said in an interview with The Kansas City Star Editorial Board.

For a minute there, it seemed that the 52-year-old Kansan’s life was likely to be spared.

But on Friday, a three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled the execution can proceed. Barring any successful last-minute appeal, the 52-year-old Montgomery will become, on Jan. 12, the first female federal inmate to be executed in nearly 70 years.

Her attorney asks, “Is Lisa Montgomery the kind of person who should be put to death?”

A brain-damaged, severely mentally ill person, that is, hideously abused throughout her life, trafficked by her own mother. A person the system ignored even after she testified in her mother’s divorce case about being raped on a regular basis by her stepfather and his friends. A person who never received any treatment until after she’d committed a gruesome crime of her own, slicing a child from the womb of a young Missouri woman, Bobbie Jo Stinnett, with a kitchen knife.

If this government ever did reflect on whether she’s the kind of person we could feel righteous about killing, however, it did so briefly and then answered yes.

Lawyers including Tim Garrison, U.S. attorney for the Western District of Missouri, defended their decision: “Montgomery received ample notice of her execution date and will not suffer irreparable harm from the bare procedural violation she alleges.”

If death isn’t irreparable, we’re not sure what is, but the government lawyers go on to argue that Montgomery “has no equitable interest in enjoying a windfall from defendants’ rescheduling of her execution to a date permitted by this court’s prior injunction.”

The “windfall” in question would involve being allowed to keep breathing.

Opposition to the death penalty has been growing for some time, but even many of those who support it don’t think it was ever meant to be used against someone as impaired as Lisa Montgomery.

Montgomery’s death at our hands would be so unconscionable that it might even be the death knell of the death penalty. It would be totally in keeping with her luckless life if she were one of the last to be put to death in our name.

— The Kansas City Star

Source: easternnewmexiconews.com, The Kansas City Star, January 6, 2021

Lawyers for U.S. death row's lone woman say she was tortured, seeks Trump's clemency

Jan 5 (Reuters) - Lawyers for Lisa Montgomery, a convicted murderer and the only woman on federal death row, asked U.S. President Donald Trump to halt her execution scheduled for next week, saying she committed her crime after a lifetime of being abused and raped.

Montgomery, due to be killed by lethal injections of a barbiturate on Jan. 12, was convicted in 2007 in Missouri for kidnapping and strangling Bobbie Jo Stinnett, then eight months pregnant. Montgomery then cut Stinnett’s fetus from the womb. The child survived.

Montgomery suffered sexual abuse and torture at the hands of her stepfather and mother that Montgomery’s lawyers and her sister, who was also raped in their childhood home, compared to a horror movie. In a nearly 7,000-page clemency petition filed on Tuesday, they asked Trump to commute Montgomery’s sentence to life in prison.

“Broken before she was born, Lisa Montgomery’s life was filled with torture, terror, failure, and betrayal,” the lawyers wrote, saying Montgomery was born brain-damaged because of her mother’s alcoholism.

Montgomery is held at the Federal Medical Center in Carswell, Texas, a prison for inmates with mental illness.

Trump is a long-time exponent of the death penalty, and has allowed more executions in a year than any other U.S. president has done since the 19th century. His administration revived the punishment in the federal system in 2020 after a 17-year hiatus even as the novel coronavirus spread to infect prison employees, inmates’ lawyers and two other inmates facing execution. President-elect Joe Biden has said he will seek to abolish the death penalty. He takes office on Jan. 20.

The lawyers have said it is wrong to execute Montgomery because of her mental illness and because other women who have committed similar crimes did not face the death penalty.

Montgomery, now 52, was abused by her stepfather, who built a room in the back of a trailer where they lived in which he and his friends raped her from about the age of 11 on and where her mother pimped her for sex, Montgomery’s lawyers said.

Diane Mattingly, Montgomery’s older sister, told reporters at a briefing that she was also repeatedly raped, sometimes with Montgomery in the same room, until authorities removed her to foster care.

“So many people let her down,” Mattingly said. “Yes, I started out the same way, but I went into a place where I was loved and cared for and shown self worth. I had a good foundation. Lisa did not and she broke. She literally broke.”

Source: in.reuters.com, Jonathan Allen, January 5, 2021

🚩 | 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

Death penalty options expanded in proposed Arizona bills

PHOENIX — Arizona lawmakers advanced proposals on Feb. 19, 2026, that would expand execution options for death row inmates to include firing squads and lethal gas, amid ongoing challenges with lethal injection and concerns over carrying out capital sentences. The measures, sponsored by Sen. Kevin Payne, R-Peoria, cleared a Senate committee with a party-line vote. They aim to give condemned inmates more choices while mandating firing squad executions for those convicted of murdering law enforcement officers. Senate Concurrent Resolution 1049 proposes a constitutional amendment that Arizona voters would decide in November. If approved, it would allow defendants sentenced to death to select from three methods: firing squad, lethal injection (intravenous administration of lethal substances) or lethal gas. Lethal injection would remain the default if no choice is made.

Japan | High court rejects retrial appeal over 1992 Fukuoka child murder

The Fukuoka High Court rejected an appeal on Monday for a retrial for the 1992 murder of two 7-year-old girls in the city of Iizuka in Fukuoka Prefecture, for which a death row convict was executed. The defense plans to file a special appeal with the Supreme Court against the decision. In what's known as the Iizuka incident, despite the assertion of his innocence, Michitoshi Kuma's death sentence became final in 2006 based on DNA test results and eyewitness accounts. He was executed at the age of 70 in 2008. The defendant's side submitted in the second round of its retrial request a woman's testimony as new evidence.

Florida | Governor DeSantis signs death warrant in 2008 murder case

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Governor Ron DeSantis has signed a death warrant for Michael L. King, setting an execution date of March 17, 2026, at 6 p.m. King was convicted and sentenced to death for the 2008 kidnapping, sexual battery and murder of Denise Amber Lee, a 21-year-old North Port mother. On January 17, 2008, Michael Lee King abducted 21-year-old Denise Amber Lee from her North Port home by forcing her into his green Chevrolet Camaro. He drove her around while she was bound, including to his cousin's house to borrow tools like a shovel. King took her to his home, where he sexually battered her, then placed her in the backseat of his car. Later that evening, he drove to a remote area, shot her in the face, and buried her nude body in a shallow grave. Her remains were discovered two days later. During the crime, multiple 9-1-1 calls were made, but communication breakdowns between emergency dispatch centers delayed the response. The case drew national attention and prompted w...

Singapore executes 33-year-old Malaysian drug trafficker

Lingkesvaran was sentenced to death in 2018. A Malaysian man convicted of trafficking a significant quantity of heroin was executed in Singapore on Feb. 11, 2026, according to an official statement issued by the Singapore authorities. Lingkesvaran Rajendaren, 33, had been found guilty of trafficking not less than 52.77 grammes of diamorphine, also known as pure heroin. Singapore law mandates the death penalty for cases involving more than 15 grams of the drug. The authorities said the amount involved was enough to sustain the addiction of approximately 630 abusers for a week, highlighting the harm caused by large-scale drug trafficking.

Sudanese Courts Sentence 2 Women to Death by Stoning for Adultery Despite International Obligations

Two Sudanese women have been sentenced to death by stoning in separate cases in Sudan, raising serious concerns about Sudan’s compliance with its international human rights obligations, particularly following its ratification of the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (UNCAT).

India | POCSO Court awards death penalty to UP couple for sexual exploitation of 33 children

A special court in Uttar Pradesh’s Banda on Friday sentenced a former Junior Engineer (JE) of the Irrigation Department and his wife to death for the sexual exploitation of 33 minor boys — some as young as three — over a decade, officials said. The POCSO court termed the crimes as “rarest of rare” and held Ram Bhawan and his wife Durgawati guilty of systematically abusing children between 2010 and 2020 and producing child sexual abuse material. Convicting the duo under provisions of the Indian Penal Code and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, the court sentenced them to death for offences including aggravated penetrative sexual assault, using a child for pornographic purposes, storage of pornographic material involving children, and abetment and criminal conspiracy, they said.

Idaho death row inmate convicted of two separate rapes and murders dies in hospital

Idaho – Erick Hall, a long-time death row inmate convicted of the rapes and murders of two women in separate incidents in the Boise area, has died at the age of 54. The Idaho Department of Correction (IDOC) announced on February 10, 2026, that Hall passed away from natural causes at approximately 9:58 p.m. on February 9, 2026, while receiving care at a local hospital in the Boise region. Hall had been serving two death sentences for first-degree murder convictions stemming from crimes committed in the early 2000s. He was housed at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution (IMSI) in Kuna, where Idaho's death row is located. The first conviction came in October 2004 for the kidnapping, rape, and murder of 38-year-old Lynn Henneman. Henneman, a flight attendant, disappeared in October 2000 after leaving a Boise restaurant. Her body was later discovered, and the case went cold for several years until DNA evidence linked Hall to the crime. A jury sentenced him to death following a trial t...

Somalia Executes Two Al-Shabaab Convicts Over Deadly Mogadishu Attacks

MOGADISHU, Feb 16, 2026 – The Somali federal government on Monday executed two men convicted of orchestrating a series of deadly assassinations and bombings in the capital, judicial officials confirmed. The executions, carried out by a firing squad following sentences handed down by the Armed Forces Court, took place early Monday morning in Mogadishu. The two individuals were identified as Hassan Ali Iftin Buule (known as Gacmey) and Hassan Ali Ibrahim Mohamed Ahmed (known by the aliases Baari, Biibaaye, and Sa’ad). Both had been found guilty of participating in terror attacks that resulted in the death and injury of numerous Somali civilians.

Oklahoma executes Kendrick Antonio Simpson

McALESTER, Okla. (DPN) — Oklahoma executed Kendrick Antonio Simpson on Thursday for the 2006 drive-by shooting deaths of two men following a dispute at an Oklahoma City nightclub, marking the state's first lethal injection of the year and the nation's third. Simpson, 45, was pronounced dead at 10:19 a.m. at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary after receiving a three-drug cocktail, prison officials said. He had been convicted of first-degree murder in the killings of Anthony Jones, 19, and Glen Palmer, 20, who were shot while sitting in a car outside the club. Simpson admitted to firing into the vehicle, later telling authorities he was "compelled by paranoia."

Oklahoma | Judge weighs Richard Glossip's second request for bond

Attorneys for former death row inmate Richard Glossip are again asking an Oklahoma County judge to release him on bond while he awaits a third trial in a high-profile murder case that has stretched nearly three decades. District Judge Natalie Mai heard arguments for and against Glossip’s release in her courtroom Thursday, Feb. 12. Glossip, 63, has been twice convicted and sentenced to death for the 1997 killing of Oklahoma City hotel owner Barry Van Treese. Prosecutors claim Glossip paid another employee, Justin Sneed, to kill Van Treese, and helped cover up the murder.

Death Penalty News

Search This Blog