Members who inspire. Champion for the Condemned

• Author: Amanda Robert
• Pages: 62-64

MEMBERS WHO INSPIRE

Champion for

the Condemned

Kelley Henry represents death row inmates

BY AMANDA ROBERT

Kelley Henry hadn’t been on

an airplane for nearly seven

months when she learned

the Department of Justice

had set an execution date for Lisa

Montgomery, who was the only woman

on the federal government’s death row.

It was a Friday in October when

the warden of Federal Medical Center

Carswell in Fort Worth, Texas, called

and put Montgomery on the phone

with Henry and her co-counsel, Amy

Harwell. Montgomery was crying and

could barely speak.

“With Lisa, there was no just talking

with her over the phone,” says Henry,

the supervisory assistant federal public

defender based in Nashville, Tennessee,

who had represented Montgomery

since 2012. Henry explains that as a

child, Montgomery was sex trafcked

by her mother and gang-raped by adult

men, which exacerbated severe mental

health issues that existed on both sides

of her family. “We needed to physically

observe her,” Henry says.

Despite the risks associated with

traveling during the COVID-19 pan-

demic, Henry and Harwell were on

their way to visit their client three days

later. Montgomery had been sentenced

to death in 2008 after being convicted

of strangling Bobbie Jo Stinnett and

cutting Stinnett’s unborn baby from

her womb. She was scheduled to be

executed Dec. 8.

When Henry and Harwell arrived,

Montgomery had been moved to a cell

that was monitored by a video camera,

and her clothes—including her un-

derwear—had been taken away. The

attorneys planned to visit Montgomery

every Monday, but within weeks, both

of them tested positive for COVID-19.

A federal judge delayed Montgomery’s

execution to Dec. 31 to give them time

to work on her clemency petition. It

was later rescheduled for Jan. 12.

Henry argued in one of several cases

led on Montgomery’s behalf that her

client was incompetent for execution

because her mental health had dete-

riorated, and therefore she no longer

understood what was happening to

her. In the days before her execution,

another federal judge granted Mont-

ABA Insider edited by

LEE RAWLES

lee.rawles@americanbar.org

Members Who Inspire is an ABA Journal series prof‌iling exceptional ABA members. If you know members who do unique and important work,

you can nominate them for this series by emailing inspire@abajournal.com.

Photo courtesy of Kelley Henry

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