Court stays execution for Lisa Montgomery, woman on death row at Fort Worth prison
Less than 24 hours before she was set to be killed, a district court granted a stay of execution for Lisa Montgomery, a woman who has been incarcerated at a federal prison in Fort Worth.
The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana issued the stay in order to hold a hearing to determine whether Montgomery is competent enough to be executed under the Eighth Amendment. Montgomery’s attorneys filed a petition on Friday arguing Montgomery is not mentally able to understand what is happening to her, making her execution unconstitutional.
Montgomery, who has been in custody at FMC Carswell prison in Fort Worth, was convicted in 2007 of strangling Bobbie Jo Stinnett to death in Missouri. Stinnett was eight months pregnant, and Montgomery cut the baby out of her and kidnapped it. She had been telling family and friends she was pregnant, and tried to pass the baby — who survived — off as her own.
Montgomery’s attorneys have been fighting for clemency for the 52-year-old woman, arguing that her mental illnesses, caused by a life of abuse and sexual assault, led her to have a psychotic breakdown and commit the crime that sent her to death row. Clemency is not the same as a pardon, but rather reduces a defendant’s sentence.
As part of the petition filed Friday, experts in neuropsychiatry and clinical psychology said Montgomery has mental and cognitive disabilities that prevent her from rationally understanding the basis for her execution.
“Mrs. Montgomery has brain damage and severe mental illness that was exacerbated by the lifetime of sexual torture she suffered at the hands of caretakers,” Montgomery’s attorney Kelley Henry said in a statement. “The Eighth Amendment prohibits the execution of people like Mrs. Montgomery who, due to their severe mental illness or brain damage, do not understand the basis for their executions. Mrs. Montgomery is mentally deteriorating and we are seeking an opportunity to prove her incompetence.”
The federal government appealed the decision to the 7th Circuit court.
On Monday, Montgomery’s legal team and activists planned a social media campaign from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m to urge officials to save Montgomery’s life. Actresses Scarlett Johansson, Susan Sarandon and Samantha Mathis joined the call to stop Montgomery’s execution, which would be the first federal execution of a woman in 67 years.
The execution was scheduled to take place at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Indiana.
