Entries tagged with “Lisa Montgomery”

Mental Illness

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Nov 08, 2024

The Role of Trauma and Mitigation in Capital Punishment

In the ear­ly 1990s, the case of Erik and Lyle Menendez cap­ti­vat­ed the American pub­lic, not only because of the bru­tal­i­ty of their crime but also because of the defense they pre­sent­ed. The broth­ers, age 18 and 21 at the time of the crime, were charged with first-degree mur­der with spe­cial cir­cum­stances for killing their par­ents, Jose and Kitty Menendez. These spe­cial cir­cum­stances made the crime a death-eli­gi­ble offense. Prosecutors alleged they were priv­i­leged young men act­ing out of greed,…

Facts & Research

United States Supreme Court

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Federal Death Penalty

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Oct 03, 2023

Analysis Shows Supreme Court’s Changing View of Death Penalty Cases

A recent analy­sis by Bloomberg Law con­clud­ed that death-sen­tenced pris­on­ers have few­er avenues to relief at the Supreme Court than ever before. Bloomberg iden­ti­fied 270 emer­gency requests to stay exe­cu­tions since 2013 and found that the Court agreed to block an exe­cu­tion just 11 times. Since 2020, when the Court shift­ed to a 6 – 3 con­ser­v­a­tive major­i­ty fol­low­ing the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the appoint­ment of Justice Amy Coney Barrett, the Court has granted just…

Facts & Research

United States Supreme Court

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Federal Death Penalty

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Jan 29, 2021

Legitimacy and the Rule of Law: Supreme Court’s Institutional Standing Damaged by Rulings During Federal Execution Spree

From July 14, 2020 through January 16, 2021, the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment exe­cut­ed thir­teen pris­on­ers. It was the most con­sec­u­tive exe­cu­tions by a sin­gle juris­dic­tion since the U.S. death penal­ty resumed in the 1970s and the longest peri­od of time in which an exe­cu­tion spree by any gov­ern­ment went unabat­ed while no oth­er jurisdiction executed…

Policy Issues

Intellectual Disability

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Mental Illness

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Race

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United States Supreme Court

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Native Americans

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Women

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Federal Death Penalty

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Jan 18, 2021

‘This is Not Justice’ — Federal Execution Spree Ends with Planned Execution of African-American on Martin Luther King Jr’s Birthday

An his­tor­i­cal­ly aber­rant six-month fed­er­al exe­cu­tion spree came to a close after mid­night on January 16, 2021 when an African-American man who was sched­uled to die on the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.​’s birth­day was put to death by pri­vate exe­cu­tion­ers hired in a secret no-bid…

Policy Issues

Mental Illness

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Women

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Federal Death Penalty

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Jan 13, 2021

Supreme Court Vacates Stays of Execution, Paves Way for Late-Night Execution of Lisa Montgomery

After a series of rul­ings by the United States Supreme Court sum­mar­i­ly vacat­ed two stays of exe­cu­tion and denied attempts to rein­state two oth­ers, the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment exe­cut­ed death row pris­on­er Lisa Montgomery (pic­tured) on January 13, 2021. Montgomery, the only woman on fed­er­al death row, was the first woman exe­cut­ed by the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment in more than 67 years, the first per­son exe­cut­ed in the U.S. in 2021, and the 11th pris­on­er put to death in a…

Executions

Upcoming Executions

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Women

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Federal Death Penalty

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Jan 04, 2021

Federal Appeals Court Reverses Block on Lisa Montgomery Execution, Dustin Higgs Execution Hits Snag

One week before the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment intends to put three pris­on­ers to death, two of the sched­uled exe­cu­tions remain in doubt after rul­ings by fed­er­al courts in Washington, D.C. and Baltimore. The sched­uled January 12, 2021 exe­cu­tion of Lisa Montgomery (pic­tured, left) appeared to be back on after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit reversed a dis­trict court rul­ing that had vacat­ed her exe­cu­tion date. At the same time, the sched­uled January 15, 2021 execution of…

Executions

Upcoming Executions

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Federal Death Penalty

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Dec 28, 2020

District Court Voids Lisa Montgomery Execution Date; Federal Prosecutors Appeal

Saying the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) act­ed unlaw­ful­ly in reset­ting Lisa Montgomery​’s exe­cu­tion for January 12, 2021, a fed­er­al judge in Washington has for a sec­ond time blocked efforts by the U.S. Department of Justice to put to death the only woman on fed­er­al death row. In an order issued late in the day on December 24, 2020, U.S. District Court Judge Randolph D. Moss agreed with Montgomery’s lawyers that the BOP lacked legal author­i­ty to reschedule…

Facts & Research

Clemency

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Upcoming Executions

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Federal Death Penalty

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Dec 21, 2020

Federal Prisoners Facing Execution Contract COVID-19 in Outbreak Spread by Prior Executions

Two men sched­uled for exe­cu­tion by the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment in January 2021 are among the fed­er­al death-row pris­on­ers who have test­ed pos­i­tive for COVID-19 at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Indiana. Lawyers for Corey Johnson (pic­tured, left) and Dustin Higgs (pic­tured, below), announced that they had been noti­fied by the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) that their clients had con­tract­ed the coro­n­avirus, amidst an out­break of the dis­ease at the…

Policy Issues

Human Rights

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International

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Mental Illness

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Upcoming Executions

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Conditions on Death Row

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Women

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Federal Death Penalty

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Dec 18, 2020

Human Rights Tribunal Calls for Stay of Execution for Lisa Montgomery

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), the human rights body charged with over­see­ing Western Hemisphere nations’ com­pli­ance with human rights oblig­a­tions, has called on the United States to halt the sched­uled January 12, 2021 exe­cu­tion of Lisa…

Facts & Research

Clemency

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Upcoming Executions

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Federal Death Penalty

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Dec 07, 2020

Prosecutors Call for Ending Federal Executions

Saying ​“our nation’s long exper­i­ment with the death penal­ty has failed,” a coali­tion of near­ly 100 crim­i­nal jus­tice offi­cials is call­ing on the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment to halt the five exe­cu­tions cur­rent­ly sched­uled for December 2020 and January 2021 and to end its use of the death…

Policy Issues

Arbitrariness

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Intellectual Disability

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History of the Death Penalty

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Upcoming Executions

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Federal Death Penalty

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Nov 23, 2020

Trump Administration Presses Forward with Death Penalty Despite Election Defeat, Announcing 3 More Death Warrants and More Capital Prosecutions

Despite its defeat at the polls on November 3, the Trump admin­is­tra­tion is press­ing for­ward with efforts to con­duct an his­tor­i­cal­ly unprece­dent­ed num­ber of lame duck exe­cu­tions and in announc­ing new fed­er­al cap­i­tal pros­e­cu­tions that it will not be in posi­tion to carry…

Policy Issues

Mental Illness

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Women

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Federal Death Penalty

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Nov 12, 2020

Coalition of More Than 1,000 Advocates Urge Federal Government to Halt December 8 Execution of Lisa Montgomery

A diverse coali­tion of more than 1,000 advo­cates, includ­ing cur­rent and for­mer pros­e­cu­tors, activists fight­ing sex traf­fick­ing and domes­tic vio­lence, and men­tal health orga­ni­za­tions, have joined forces to ask President Donald Trump to halt the upcom­ing exe­cu­tion of the only woman on fed­er­al death row, Lisa Montgomery…

Policy Issues

Mental Illness

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Representation

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Upcoming Executions

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Women

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Federal Death Penalty

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Oct 19, 2020

U.S. Government Sets Two More Execution Dates, Seeking to Put to Death the First Woman and the Youngest Offender in More Than Six Decades

The fed­er­al gov­ern­ment intends to con­tin­ue its unprece­dent­ed exe­cu­tion spree into December, sched­ul­ing the exe­cu­tions of the first woman and the youngest offend­er put to death by fed­er­al author­i­ties in near­ly sev­en decades. In a Friday evening announce­ment, the U.S. Department of Justice announced on October 16, 2020 that it had set the exe­cu­tion of Lisa Montgomery (pic­tured) for December 8 and Brandon Bernard for December…