Somewhat overshadowed by his incitement of last Wednesday’s terrorist attack, President Trump apparently plans to continue tomorrow with his execution spree.
Lisa Montgomery, the only woman on federal death row, is scheduled to be killed by the government for murdering a pregnant Bobbie Jo Stinnett in 2004 and kidnapping the baby.
The execution, originally scheduled for December 8th, was delayed until this year by a district judge after her lawyer’s COVID diagnosis on November 19th.
Four days later, her execution was rescheduled for tomorrow by then-Attorney General Bill Barr, prompting the same district judge to halt even a rescheduling being decided before the new year.
(The latter ruling came on Barr’s last day in office, with Trump having announced his resignation 9 days prior—and three days after the most recent execution, of Alfred Bourgeois.)
On New Year’s Day, the DC Court of Appeals vacated the ruling, upholding tomorrow’s date.
Montgomery, a lifelong victim of physical and sexual abuse before the murder, suffers from a variety of mental illnesses, which her defense team posited as the cause of her criminal activity.
However, this information was not fully revealed to jurors until after her conviction, during the appeals process. And though experts confirmed her diagnoses thereafter, her appeals have come to nothing.
If the Trump administration gets its way, Montgomery will be the first woman executed by the federal government since Bonnie Brown Heady in 1953, and the fourth ever.
Sans Barr, this would also be the first execution under acting AG Jeffrey Rosen, who before his nomination as deputy AG had no previous experience as a prosecutor. (He was recommended for the position by Barr.)
On July 27th, the New York Times published an op-ed from Rosen, in which he attempted to justify the execution of Daniel Lewis Lee earlier that month.
“...if the United States is going to allow capital punishment, a white-supremacist triple murderer would seem the textbook example of a justified case.”
Now, a week after a murderous insurrection at the capitol with hefty White Supremacist support, Rosen plans to continue the dirty work of the man who helped cause it.
Nate Tinner-Williams is co-founder of Black Catholic Messenger, a priesthood applicant with the Josephites, and a ThM student with the Institute for Black Catholic Studies at Xavier University of Louisiana (XULA).
