Judge halts federal execution in Terre Haute after lawyers contract virus at prison
WASHINGTON
(AP) — A federal judge is temporarily blocking the federal government’s
plan to execute the first female death row inmate in almost six decades
after her attorneys contracted the coronavirus visiting her in prison.
The
order, handed down Thursday by U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss in
Washington, prohibits the federal Bureau of Prisons from carrying out Lisa Montgomery’s execution
before the end of the year. She was scheduled to be put to death on
Dec. 8 at the federal prison complex in Terre Haute, Indiana.
Montgomery’s
attorneys had sought to delay the execution in order to file a clemency
petition on her behalf. The lawyers, Kelley Henry and Amy Harwell, who
are based in Nashville, Tennessee, tested positive for COVID-19 after
they flew to visit her at a Texas prison last month. In court papers,
they said each roundtrip visit from Nashville involved two flights,
hotel stays and interaction with airline and hotel staff, as well as
prison employees.
Montgomery’s legal team has argued that their
client suffers from serious mental illnesses and can’t assist in filing
her own clemency petition, in part because all of her clothes have been
taken away and she’s been left only with a “sheet of paper and a single
crayon” in her cell, attorney Sandra Babcock said in court this week.
Both
Henry and Harwell have serious symptoms from the virus and are
“functionally incapacitated” and thus unable to help file a clemency
petition, Babcock said. Another attorney couldn’t be assigned to file
one because Montgomery’s mental status has deteriorated since the
Justice Department scheduled her execution last month and she doesn’t
trust many lawyers, but Henry and Harwell have worked with her for years
and have gained her trust, Babcock argued.
In his ruling, Moss
said that if the execution moves forward as scheduled, Montgomery would
“lose her statutory right to meaningful representation by counsel in the
clemency process.” He said the lawyers should file a clemency petition
by Dec. 24 or bring on other lawyers to assist.
Babcock hailed the
ruling as “a meaningful opportunity to prepare and present a clemency
application after her attorneys recover from COVID.”
“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,” she said.
Montgomery
was convicted of killing 23-year-old Bobbie Jo Stinnett in the northwest
Missouri town of Skidmore in December 2004, using a rope to strangle
Stinnett, who was eight months pregnant, and then using a kitchen knife
to cut the baby girl from the womb, authorities said.
Prosecutors
said Montgomery removed the baby from Stinnett’s body, took the child
with her, and attempted to pass the girl off as her own.