Lisa Montgomery’s attorneys contract COVID-19, push for delay of her December execution
Attorneys for a Kansas woman who killed an expected mother and cut her unborn baby from her womb are seeking a delay of her execution after they contracted COVID-19, according to court documents.
In a lawsuit filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Lisa Montgomery’s attorneys revealed that they contracted the disease and are experiencing debilitating symptoms after visiting her.
The suit asks for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction, asking that she not be put to death, until Montgomery’s attorneys can prepare and submit her clemency application.
The Trump administration has rejected the request for a reprieve due to their illnesses, according to a news release issued Thursday. The lawsuit names U.S. Attorney General William Barr as well as officials with the Department of Justice, Bureau of Prisons and the Office of the Pardon Attorney as defendants.
The 52-year-old Montgomery, who is from Melvern, Kansas, was convicted in 2007 of strangling 23-year-old Bobbie Jo Stinnett in northwest Missouri and kidnapping her unborn baby after cutting her from her womb. The child was later found safe.
A coalition of more than 1,000 supporters on Wednesday urged President Donald Trump to stop the execution, citing horrific abuse and mental illness.
In a series of letters, they asked for Trump to grant clemency to Montgomery. The supporters include prosecutors, anti-sex trafficking and anti-domestic violence groups, child advocates and mental health groups.
In one letter, signed by more than 800 people and organizations, the authors said Montgomery’s mother abused alcohol during her pregnancy, which resulted in permanent brain damage.
Montgomery would be the first woman to be executed by the federal government in 67 years. She is the only woman among the 55 prisoners on federal death row and is scheduled to die by lethal injection Dec. 8.
According to court documents filed Thursday, the Department of Justice set her December execution date on Oct. 16 without any notice to her attorneys. Her clemency application is due on Nov. 15.
Department of Justice regulations suggest that at least 120 days’ notice should be provided to a prisoner so that they may prepare a clemency petition, according to court documents.
Three days after her execution date was set, Montgomery’s lead attorneys, Kelley Henry and Amy Harwell, traveled to Carswell, Texas, to meet with her, where they discovered that Montgomery’s mental health had deteriorated.
Montgomery had been placed in a suicide cell and her underwear had been taken away, which documents say was particularly traumatic because Montgomery had been a repeated victim of rape, incest and child sex trafficking.
Her attorneys visited her twice more. On the third visit, which was in early November, they discovered that Montgomery was showing signs of “dissociation in reaction to the news of her execution date” and that her mental health had worsened between the first and third visits, according to court documents.
Mental health experts who are familiar with her history are unable to travel to evaluate her current mental health status due to the pandemic. Montgomery’s mental illness is relevant to a request for Trump to commute her sentence to life without patrol.
This week, Henry and Harwell tested positive for COVID-19 and were told by doctors to rest and quarantine.
“Both Harwell and Henry are virtually bed-ridden,” the documents said. “They both have debilitating fatigue that prevents them from working on Mrs. Montgomery’s clemency application.”
Montgomery’s attorneys contend that Barr setting her execution during the height of the pandemic has interfered with her right to counsel to assist her in the filing of her clemency application, and from participating in the process.
“Mrs. Montgomery’s lawyers cannot represent her because they are seriously ill, through no fault of their own,” they wrote in the lawsuit. “On the contrary, they are sick because Defendant Barr recklessly scheduled Mrs. Montgomery’s execution in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“But for Barr’s action, counsel would not have been stricken with the disease that is ravaging the country. But the pandemic affects more than counsel. Because of COVID-19, the experts familiar with her case cannot assess her mental state and therefore cannot participate in the clemency process.”
Earlier this year, two men who killed Kansas City area children were among the first federal executions in nearly 20 years.
Wesley Purkey, who in 1998 raped and killed a 16-year-old Jennifer Long before dismembering her body, was executed in July.
In August, Keith D. Nelson, who kidnapped, raped and killed a 10-year-old Pamela Butler in Kansas City, Kansas, in 1999, was executed by lethal injection.
This story was originally published November 12, 2020 at 3:10 PM.
