WASHINGTON – After a flurry of court decisions, the Supreme
Court reversed a pair of rulings from federal appeals courts that had put
death-row inmate Lisa Montgomery's execution on hold, and it denied two other
last-minute requests to postpone the execution.
Montgomery was put to death by lethal injection at the
federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, soon after the court's decision at 1:31
a.m. (EST). She was the first woman to be put to death in federal prison since
1953.
After the court's decision, Sister Helen Prejean, a Sister
of St. Joseph of Medaille and longtime death penalty opponent, tweeted:
"In yet another after-midnight ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court has allowed
the federal government to proceed with Lisa Montgomery's execution immediately.
This decision will forever be a scarlet letter for the SCOTUS – a complete
failure to protect our most vulnerable citizens."
Kelley Henry, Montgomery's attorney, said in a Jan. 13
statement: "The craven bloodlust of a failed administration was on full
display tonight. Everyone who participated in the execution of Lisa Montgomery
should feel shame."
Catholic leaders have been pleading for an end to the death
penalty and urging leaders to stop this practice, particularly with three
executions initially scheduled to take place between Jan. 12-15.
On Jan. 12, a federal judge for the U.S. District Court for
the District of Columbia halted the executions scheduled for Corey Johnson and
Dustin Higgs Jan. 14 and Jan. 15, respectively, due to their risk of increased
suffering because of COVID-19 lung damage.
The two inmates tested positive for the coronavirus in
December. The previous day the American Medical Association urged Acting
Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and the Justice Department to postpone the
federal executions scheduled for the second week in January, saying recent
executions have turned into COVID-19 super-spreader events.
In 2004, Montgomery attacked and killed a pregnant woman,
cut her open and took the woman's baby.
In a nearly 7,000-page clemency petition submitted in early
January to President Donald Trump, Montgomery's lawyers detailed their client's
claims of physical abuse, rape and torture as well as being sex trafficked by
her mother.
"Everything about this case is overwhelmingly
sad," the petition said. "As human beings we want to turn away. It is
easy to call Mrs. Montgomery evil and a monster, as the government has. She is
neither."
On Jan. 10, Holy Cross Father John Jenkins, president of the
University of Notre Dame, said Montgomery's upcoming execution was
"particularly troubling," because it "illustrates some of the
many systemic failures in our system of capital punishment. The victim of
severe child abuse and sexual violence herself, Montgomery committed a crime so
heinous and bizarre that it raises serious questions about her mental
state."
In a statement he said: "President Trump, whose
administration has expressed a commitment to defend the sanctity of human life,
has the power to stop this inhumane, unprecedented and unnecessary spree of
executions pursued by his Justice Department in the waning days of his
administration. I urge him to do so."
He stressed that the "most fundamental objection to the
death penalty, though, is that it undermines our commitment to the sanctity of
all human life – healthy or infirm, talented or ordinary, good or bad.
Death-row inmates have been convicted of some of the most awful crimes
imaginable, yet even their lives do not lose that dignity."
The Catholic Mobilizing Network also has spoken out against
Montgomery's execution along with scheduled federal executions of Johnson and
Higgs. It is holding virtual prayer vigils on the afternoon of each scheduled
execution and did this Jan. 12 hours prior to Montgomery's execution.
Participants can sign up online at
https://catholicsmobilizing.org/virtual-vigils.
The group launched an online petition campaign asking
President-elect Joe Biden to make it a priority to end federal executions once
he is sworn into office, urging the incoming administration to "uphold the
sacred dignity of every person" and make good on its promises to dismantle
the federal death penalty system.
The petition names several possible avenues toward abolition
the president-elect could pursue, including declaring an official moratorium on
federal executions, commuting the death sentences of all those currently on
federal death row and advocating to end the death penalty in law.
The last suggestion was taken up in late afternoon Jan. 11
when Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, the incoming chair of the Senate Judiciary
Committee, and Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Massachusetts, announced plans to
introduce legislation seeking an end to the federal death penalty.
"There are three lives that hang in the balance this
week alone," Pressley said in an interview with NPR. "This is why we
reintroduced this bill this week and are urging Congress to act immediately to
pass it. State-sanctioned murder is not justice."
Follow Zimmermann on Twitter: @carolmaczim