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Good evening from the FCC Terre Haute Training Center, where reporters are gathered to cover the execution of Lisa Montgomery. There is more press than usual tonight. Some, including myself, are here for the 11th time since July 2020.
Non-witnessing press are currently being briefed by BOP spokesperson Scott Taylor, who just told us that the victim’s family will not be addressing reporters after the execution.
These are the vans that take media witnesses to the penitentiary. The execution was originally scheduled for 6pm, but multiple stays have been in place at various times and litigation is ongoing. Everyone agrees it could be a long night and that this will come down to SCOTUS.
Across from the training center, the flag is flying at half staff.
I stopped by the Dollar General earlier. This is where people gather to protest the execution. Activists like @AbolitionAshley (holding the All Life Is Precious sign) sued the Indiana State Police to have access to the space, which sits directly across from the penitentiary.
A lot of excellent reporters have covered Montgomery’s case & laid out her harrowing childhood, severe mental illness & the tragic incompetence of her defense attorneys. Among them is @quasimado, who wrote one of the first stories last year & has covered it extensively. Follow: https://twitter.com/quasimado/status/1349133180989747204
You can also read @LVikkiml at @TheNation https://www.thenation.com/article/society/lisa-montgomery-execution-federal/ And @laurenk_gill at @Slate: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/12/lisa-montgomery-federal-execution.html
Indiana Public Media colleagues @georgehale and @AdamPinsker, both of whom have witnessed way too many of these executions since last summer, also produced this crucial mini-documentary about the case: https://video.indianapublicmedia.org/video/a-mothers-justice-the-trials-of-lisa-montgomery-luo5in/
As many know, Montgomery's lawyers contracted Covid-19 last fall as a direct result of traveling to see her. Part of the surreal cruelty of this execution spree has been in callously forcing defense attorneys to gamble their health to fulfill their obligation to their clients.
Was just told by BOP spokesperson Scott Taylor that we won’t be getting any further update until 9pm. We’re free to go and come back then.
Many people have interviewed Montgomery's defense atty Kelley Henry, who is fighting alongside her colleagues to save her client. Those of us in Nashville also know her as the lawyer for people on TN's death row. My friend @iamstevenhale profiled her here: https://www.nashvillescene.com/news/cover-story/article/21098273/for-some-death-row-inmates-kelley-henry-is-the-last-line-of-defense
Kelley Henry, Amy Harwell & the Federal Public Defender's office in Nashville also were the first to publicly present evidence that has since become central to the ongoing litigation around lethal injection. Specifically, the risk of flash pulmonary edema. https://theintercept.com/2018/08/05/death-penalty-lethal-injection-trial-tennessee/
Last Tuesday, as Henry briefed reporters via Zoom on Montgomery's clemency petition, lawyers for Corey Johnson and Dustin Higgs were in a 5+ hour evidentiary hearing arguing that, bc their clients got sick with Covid, they are at even higher risk of experiencing pulmonary edema.
Update from media witness (who has witnessed many times before). I'm not at the media center but will be soon. https://twitter.com/mtarm/status/1349187508408610817
Back at the media center, in my car, waiting on SCOTUS. No one is feeling optimistic. We've been here too many times. For the condemned and their loved ones, these stays are among the most wretched parts of this process. People try not to get their hopes up too much, but they do.
When I interviewed the son of Orlando Hall, who also got a temporary stay, he said his dad told him on the phone not to get his hopes up. He was in Terre Haute, looking for updates on Twitter. That's how he learned his father's execution would proceed. https://theintercept.com/2020/12/26/execution-death-penalty-families-orlando-hall/
Something else he said, which didn't make it into the piece, is that he later found himself scrolling Twitter on the night of Brandon Bernard's execution. He said it brought back the trauma from the night his dad was killed. He could feel what Brandon's family was going through.
