The High Court sided with the Tump administration late Tuesday to rule that Lisa Montgomery, the only woman on the federal death penalty, should be executed.
Why it matters: Montgomery, 52, becomes the first female federal inmate to be killed in 67 years.
Remarkable: A federal judge on Tuesday granted Montgomery a suspension of execution hours before she would die by a lethal injection into a federal prison complex in Indiana.
- Advocates of Montgomery argued that the eighth amendment prohibits the execution of people like Montgomery who, “because of their serious mental illness or brain damage, do not understand the basis for their execution.”
Details: The Supreme Court voted 6-3 in favor of the ruling. The three liberal judges differed.
The whole picture: Federal executions have been quiet for 16 years until the Trump administration resumed federal death sentences last year, says Axana’s Oriana Gonzalez.
- Montgomery was one of three inmates to be executed by the Justice Department this week, a week before the inauguration of President Biden, who is facing the death penalty.
Background: Montgomery was convicted in 2004 of the murder of 23-year-old Bobbie Jo Stinnett, who was eight months pregnant, and cut her baby out of her womb and abducted the child who survived the attack.
Go deeper: Trump’s last word on executions
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