Wednesday, December 2, 2020

Administration Steps Up Human Rights Abuses During Its Last Few Weeks

The Trump Administration has stepped up its efforts to inflict as much inhumanity as possible before its demise.  As of now, five people who ae incarcerated in the federal prison system are scheduled to be executed before January 20th.  

The President removed the suspension of capital punishment that had been in place for well over a decade.  The last prior federal execution was 17 years ago.   Among those scheduled for execution is Lisa Montgomery. She would be the first woman executed by the federal government in 67 years.  While Ms. Montgomery's crime was shocking, she committed the crime while suffering from PTSD from being sexually trafficked during her childhood.  According to a Washington Post  report on Ms. Montgomery " Cases in which women are sentenced to death often involve prosecutors portraying the defendant as straying from gender norms by, for example, being sexually deviant or an inattentive mother, Dunham said. He said many women who receive the death penalty were not in their right mind at the time of the crime."  

Recently Ms. Montgomery's two lawyers became ill with COVID-19.  A federal district court recently denied their quest for a delay in the scheduled December 8th execution.  Ms. Montgomery is represented by clinicians and students of the Cornell International Human Rights Clinic. An appeals ordered a stay of execution until December 31st to provide Ms. Montgomery's lawyers an opportunity to recover and continue advocating for their client.  The federal government promptly rescheduled the execution for January 12th.  Wishing the clinic Godspeed in finding a way to extend the execution date for at least an additional nine days so the Biden administration may take action to prevent Ms. Montgomery's execution as well as other future executions.

You may sign a petition to assist Ms. Montgomery here.

https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/human_rights/2020/12/administration-steps-up-human-rights-abuses-during-its-last-few-weeks-draft.html

Incarcerated, Margaret Drew | Permalink

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