Harwell and Henry believe they caught the virus in a series of visits to Montgomery in a Texas federal prison when they visited to help console her, prepare her clemency petition and prepare her for her scheduled death. Only woman on death rowĪ federal judge appointed the Tennessee attorneys to assist on the case, as fellow counsel did not have capital case experience. Babcock has previously entered declarations to the court on the case. Babcock, Clinical Professor of Law, Cornell Law School in an emailed release. She will now have the opportunity to present this evidence to the President with a request that he commute her sentence to life imprisonment," said Sandra L. 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. "The district court’s ruling gives Lisa Montgomery a meaningful opportunity to prepare and present a clemency application after her attorneys recover from COVID. 24, they're ordered to add other attorneys or ask the court to appoint additional qualified lawyers to the case. If they're still too unwell to do so without further assistance by Dec. Under Thursday's order, Harwell and Henry must finalize the clemency petition as soon as they are able. 8 in Terre Haute, Indiana, the first female inmate expected to be put to death by the U.S. She was scheduled to die by lethal injection on Dec. Montgomery was convicted in 2007 of fatally strangling a 23-year-old pregnant woman, cutting her body open and kidnapping her baby. But the Court will also fashion its injunction to give due respect to the interest of Defendants and the public in avoiding unjustified delays in capitals (sic) cases." "Given the gravity of the circumstances and the extraordinary circumstances of the pandemic, the Court concludes that the balance of equities and the public interest weigh in Plaintiff’s favor. "The public’s interest in seeing justice done lies not only in carrying out the sentence imposed years ago but also in the lawful process leading to possible execution," Moss wrote. Their symptoms have limited their ability to file a clemency petition to President Donald Trump, the court found. RELATED: Why the fate of the only woman on federal death row hinges on these Tennessee attorneys and their health A new date has not yet been set.Īssistant federal public defenders Kelley Henry and Amy Harwell, based in the Middle Tennessee District, asked the court to delay the execution after they each caught COVID-19 during last-ditch efforts to save Montgomery's life. Lisa Montgomery's execution has been delayed until at least Dec. Montgomery was initially set to be executed in December, but the date was delayed after her attorneys, who are based in Nashville, Tennessee, contracted the coronavirus amid traveling to Texas and working on her case.View Gallery: Death row inmates that have died in Tennessee executions since 2000Ī federal judge has delayed the execution of the only woman on federal death row after two of her attorneys - Tennessee-based public defenders - contracted severe cases of COVID-19. President-elect Joe Biden has suggested he would put a moratorium on the federal death penalty. The execution comes in the waning days of the Trump administration, which in 2019 announced plans to carry out the first federal executions in 17 years. Henry has said that Montgomery suffered from severe mental illness that was "exacerbated by the lifetime of sexual torture she suffered at the hands of caretakers," and her lawyers sought a chance to prove her incompetence. "The craven bloodlust of a failed administration was on full display tonight," Kelley Henry, an attorney for Montgomery, said in a statement. Earlier Wednesday, the Supreme Court lifted an appeals court stay that had blocked the execution, and it denied a request for a stay filed by Montgomery's attorneys that raised mental illness concerns.
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