Vicious to the end

Lisa Montgomery is the first woman to be put to death by the United States government for almost seven decades. Her crime was horrific. In 2004, Montgomery strangled Bobbie Jo Stinnett, who was eight months pregnant. She then cut a baby from her womb, and attempted to pass her off as her own. The pain and suffering of Ms Stinnett’s family can barely be imagined. But the political context of this week’s execution, and overwhelming evidence of Montgomery’s longstanding mental illness, suggests a gross miscarriage of justice has taken place.

Issuing a stay of execution, subsequently overruled by the supreme court, a district judge cited evidence that ‘‘Ms Montgomery’s mental state is so divorced from reality that she cannot rationally understand the government’s rationale for her execution’’.

Since entering the penitentiary system, the 52-year-old had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, PTSD, anxiety and depression, psychosis, mood swings, dissociation and memory loss.

All through her childhood, Montgomery was gang-raped by her alcoholic stepfather and his friends, and physically

tortured by both parents. Social workers and doctors failed to intervene.

In the history of US justice, there have never been so many scheduled federal executions during the lame-duck period of a presidency. Globally, only six countries executed more people than the US last year: China, Iran, Egypt, Iraq, Somalia and North Korea.

Trump has again turned his country into a dysfunctional outlier, as well as a fellow-traveller with regimes he professes to despise. Joe Biden has pledged to work towards eliminating capital punishment in America. For Lisa Montgomery, it will be too late.