The only woman on death row in the US is set to be executed after a court overruled a decision to delay her death.
Lisa Montgomery, 52, was convicted of strangling to death 23-year-old Bobbie Jo Stinnett, who was eight months pregnant, and cutting her baby out with a kitchen knife in 2004.
The baby survived the attack and prosecutors said Montgomery took the child with her and attempted to pass them off as her own.
She was due to be executed by lethal injection in Terre Haute, Indiana, on 8 December but a stay was put in place after her lawyers contracted COVID-19 while visiting her in prison.
On Boxing Day, Judge Randolph Moss vacated a Federal Bureau of Prisons order rescheduling her death for 12 January after siding with her lawyers, who said a date could not be set while a stay was in place. He said a date could not be rescheduled until at least 1 January.nt
However, on Friday, a three-judge panel on the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit concluded that the lower court judge delayed the date in error and reinstated the execution.
One of Montgomery's lawyers, Meaghan VerGow, has said her team will ask for the full appeals court to review the case.
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