An American woman Lisa Montgomery was executed for murdering a pregnant dog breeder in order to steal her baby on Wednesday.
This makes her the first female to be executed by United States federal authorities in nearly seven decades. She was put to death by a lethal injection.
The US Justice Department has said that the execution was “in accordance with the capital sentence unanimously recommended by a federal jury and imposed by the US District Court for the Western District of Missouri”.
There were doubts about Montgomery’s mental health however the US Supreme Court still cleared the way for Montgomery's execution just hours earlier.
Montgomery in 2004 killed a pregnant 23-year-old in order to steal her baby. Her lawyer Kelley Henry, while not denying the charge, in a statement, called the decision the first for a female inmate since 1953 a “vicious, unlawful, and unnecessary exercise of authoritarian power".
“No one can credibly dispute Ms Montgomery’s longstanding debilitating mental disease — diagnosed and treated for the first time by the Bureau of Prisons’ own doctors,” Henry said in a statement.
This makes her the first female to be executed by United States federal authorities in nearly seven decades. She was put to death by a lethal injection.
The US Justice Department has said that the execution was “in accordance with the capital sentence unanimously recommended by a federal jury and imposed by the US District Court for the Western District of Missouri”.
There were doubts about Montgomery’s mental health however the US Supreme Court still cleared the way for Montgomery's execution just hours earlier.
Montgomery in 2004 killed a pregnant 23-year-old in order to steal her baby. Her lawyer Kelley Henry, while not denying the charge, in a statement, called the decision the first for a female inmate since 1953 a “vicious, unlawful, and unnecessary exercise of authoritarian power".
“No one can credibly dispute Ms Montgomery’s longstanding debilitating mental disease — diagnosed and treated for the first time by the Bureau of Prisons’ own doctors,” Henry said in a statement.