US declares its first ever death penalty to a woman in 70 years
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Lisa Montgomery now(Left) and then in 2004 at the time of arrest (Right)
The US Department of Justice declared on Friday the first ever capital punishment in 70 years of sentencing a woman to death scheduled on 8th December.
The department stated that Lisa Montgomery, convicted of strangling a pregnant woman in Missouri in 2004, will be executed with a lethal injection at U.S. Penitentiary Terre Haute, Indiana.
Lisa Montgomery, then 36, was arrested and charged in the kidnapping of the child which resulted in the death of the infant's mother, Bobbie Jo Stinnett, 23, in 2004. The reports convey that she had mutilated the victim by cut opening her womb and clamping the baby, who was retrieved later and was in good health.
The accused was suffering from pseudocyesis, which causes delusions of pregnancy, the defence lawyers argued during the trial. However, the jury declared her guilty and sent to prison.
The Death Penalty Information Center informed the last woman executed by a federal court decision was Bonnie Headey, who was placed in a Missouri gas chamber in 1953, according to Reuters. Another federal execution is set on December 10th for Brandon Bernard, who was behind the assassination of two ministers in 1999.
President Donald Trump's administration restored the federal death penalty after a 17-year breach and proclaimed execution by lethal injection of one substance which was previously based on three-combined drug substance, on July last year.