TERRE HAUTE, Ind. — Lawyers for the first woman to face federal execution in decades are requesting that federal authorities delay the carrying out of the execution of Lisa Montgomery.
Her lawyers say Attorney General Bill Barr “recklessly scheduled” Montgomery’s execution in the middle of a pandemic, which they say led to two of her lawyers catching coronavirus while working on her case.
“Each round trip involved two plane flights, transit through two airports, hotel stays, and interaction with dozens of people including airline attendants, car rental employees, passengers, and prison guards,” Montgomery’s lawyers said in the lawsuit. “They are sick because Defendant Barr recklessly scheduled Mrs. Montgomery’s execution in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic.”
Montgomery was convicted of strangling a pregnant woman to death in Missouri in 2007 and then cutting out the woman’s unborn baby. The baby survived.
She’s set to be executed at the federal pen in Terre Haute on December 8th.
