THE GOVERNMENT KEEPS TORTURING THIS POOR WOMAN WHO COMMITTED A WEE BIT OF A CRIME

Fort Worth prisoner scheduled for execution seeks to block her transfer to male prison because it will 'trigger a catastrophic psychiatric breakdown' 

 

By Paula Fonseca

 

UNILAD

December 9, 2020

 

A Fort Worth prisoner who would be the first woman executed by the federal government since 1953 is asking to be sentenced to death where she is currently housed, and not in an all-male prison in Indiana, court records show.

                                      

Lisa Montgomery, 52, is scheduled to be injected on January 12 in a federal prison in Terre Haute for the murder of a pregnant woman, Bobbie Jo Stinnett, in 2004, in Missouri.

The Federal Medical Center-Carswell in Fort Worth has an adjacent minimum security satellite camp for women in need of health. It is the only medical center for women in the Federal Bureau of Prisons, according to the lawsuit. Terre Haute’s prison, however, never housed women and is predominantly composed of men, the suit says.

Montgomery’s lawyers sued Attorney General William Barr and several federal prison officials in Washington, DC last month, seeking an injunction to stop his transfer, claiming that the change and adverse conditions in the Indiana prison would constitute “immediate damage and for real”

“The transfer to an all-male prison will inflict more free suffering on Ms. Montgomery and is likely to trigger a catastrophic psychiatric breakdown,” wrote Robin Nunn, a lawyer from Washington, D.C., in the complaint.

The government says she will be transferred a day or two before the execution and will be left alone in a separate building, where the executions are carried out. Team members, both male and female, will look after her, wrote Johnny Walker and Alan Simpson, government lawyers.

“While accepting Montgomery’s claim that a brief transfer to an all-male institution poses a risk of psychological harm, it does not shock conscience to transfer a death row prisoner to FCC Terre Haute – the only federal prison that carries out executions.” they wrote.

As President Donald Trump prepares to step down, his government is accelerating the pace of federal executions. A total of five are planned for the next month, leading to the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden on 20 January. The Trump administration resumed federal executions in July after a 17-year hiatus. Barr recently said The Associated Press that he would probably schedule more executions before leaving the Department of Justice.

The Montgomery case was recently moved to the North Texas District of Fort Worth, before U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman.

ACLU’s lawyers in Nunn and Montgomery claim that the government illegally discriminated against her for not making reasonable accommodations for her. The lawsuit claims that Montgomery is suicidal and suffers from a range of psychological disorders.

“The armed guards who transported prisoners on death row at the FCC Terre Haute were all men, wearing bulletproof vests and helmets, and carrying military weapons,” the suit says.

Montgomery attempted suicide several times between 2010 and 2012 and was placed under surveillance against suicide in Fort Worth, court documents say. She is one of about 50 women on death row in the USA. Women represent only 1% of all executed people, according to the non-profit organization Death Penalty Information Center.

“The crime for which Lisa Montgomery was sentenced to death reflects the depth of her mental illness, despair and disconnection from reality,” wrote her lawyers in the lawsuit.

In its response, the government said Montgomery’s concerns about her transfer were speculative and unfounded. Her lawyers say the Bureau of Prison’s transport team would include men and women, as well as a psychologist and a nurse. Since receiving the notification in October of the initial execution date, Montgomery and her lawyers have filed several lawsuits, according to the authorities.

“On the other side of the ledger, 13 years after her conviction, the public interest in allowing Montgomery’s execution to continue is overwhelming,” wrote Walker and Simpson. “Montgomery committed an incredibly brutal crime, for which the jury determined that the death penalty was guaranteed.”

Montgomery went to Stinnett’s home in Skidmore, Missouri, with a kitchen knife and a handle, pretending to be interested in buying a Stinnett dog, court records show. She then attacked Stinnett, 23, who was eight months pregnant, strangling her with the cord until she lost consciousness, according to court records.

When Montgomery cut it with a kitchen knife, Stinnett regained consciousness, leading to a fight. Montgomery then strangled Stinnett again, killing her.

Montgomery, who planned the crime for months, ran away with the premature baby, the government said. The child was later rescued. In her 2007 trial, Montgomery was found guilty of federal kidnapping that resulted in death, and the jury recommended a death sentence, court records show.

Nunn wrote in an updated document that Montgomery has suffered repeated sexual and physical abuse and neglect since childhood.

Having been traumatized and sexually abused by men throughout her life, Montgomery is stressed and terrified when in the presence of men, especially strangers, the suit says. Transferring her to an all-male prison for her scheduled execution regardless of her gender or disability violates federal law, Nunn wrote.

She also has congenital brain injuries and multiple traumatic brain injuries that have resulted in “significant psychiatric disabilities,” the suit says. “A neurologist compared her brain to a city that was bombed in several areas, resulting in poor functioning throughout the city,” says the suit.

Federal regulations do not specify where federal executions are to be carried out, so the decision is made by the director of the Prison Department, according to the process.

Nunn said in the process that the Indiana prison has no staff trained to meet the needs of inmates. The result is that Montgomery will be subject to more trauma, as well as “dissociation, psychosis and more pain and humiliation,” says the suit.

“The Defendants know that the transfer of a woman with mental illness – because of years of abuse at the hands of men – to a maximum security prison for men only, where she will be surrounded by male prisoners and constantly watched over by prison guards. male sex without the necessary training or experience with respect to women prisoners, will have a predictable and catastrophic impact on Ms. Montgomery. “

But the government said Montgomery “has no right to micromanage the conditions of her confinement for her own comfort and convenience.”