THE AFRICA BAZAAR STAFF
January 13, 2021
Lisa Montgomery, who committed an heinous murder on an eight-months pregnant woman when she cut open the belly to take out a baby from the mother’s womb, was executed early Wednesday by lethal injection, the first federal execution of a woman on death row in nearly seven decades.
Montgomery, 52, executed at Federal prison complex in Terre Haute, Indiana, was the 11th prisoner to be killed by lethal injection since the Trump administration resumed federal executions last July after a 17 year hiatus.
Her execution came after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a request from her legal team for delay her death and has lifted a stay of execution.
Montgomery killed Bobbie Jo Stinnett—a young Missouri woman, by strangulation. Stinnett, who was 23-year old at the time, was eight months pregnant with a baby girl, who Montgomery cut from the womb with a kitchen knife. She then took the child with her and attempted to pass her off as her own.
The child, who survived and is being raised by her father, turned six last month on the anniversary of her mother’s death.
The crime shook the nation at the time and has haunted the Missouri community for years.
Though her legal team tried to attribute the crime to mental health issues caused by years of traumas by suggesting and showing evidence that Montgomery was mentally ill and was abused as a child, the Court didn’t buy it and convicted her, giving her the capital punishment.
President Donald J. Trump is a proponent of capital punishment. In July 2019, then Attorney General William Barr reinstitute federal execution at the Justice Department, closing a nearly two-decade hiatus.
The incoming Biden-Harris administration is against death penalty and is expected to take up the issue with Congress to eliminate federal capital punishment.
The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee incoming chairman Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Illinois and Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass have unveiled a legislation that seek to end capital punishment at the federal level and require re-sentencing of all federal inmates on death row.
The bill proposal comes as Democrats is about to gain a unified control of the Congress and Senate after the two Senate race wins in Georgia, which balances the Senate power but gives the Senate Democrats a majority advantage of winning legislative votes with Vice-President Kamala Harris as the decider vote.
The federal government executed 10 prisoners last year, and more executions are scheduled for the final days of the Trump administration before Biden takes office.
