Lisa Montgomery executed

[PegasusReturns]

Lisa Montgomery was executed yesterday - I don’t know how this amounts to justice in 2021. What an appalling tragedy her life and death was.

www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-55642177

Let’s be clear, Lisa Montgomery was not executed as punishment for her crime, or as closure for her victims family, she was executed on the whim of the (currently) most powerful man in the world who in 6 days will have all the power he has relished taken from him and be seen in the eyes of the world as a disgraced failure. This was his two fingers raised against Biden and the Democratic Party.

Absolutely this. This execution was nothing to do with Lisa Montgomery or her victims family.

Another vote for 'I wouldn't've executed Hitler' here. Murder begets murder.

Not read every post but agree OP I'm appalled. I felt so relieved when I thought it had been called off yesterday.

Of course her crime was terrible and I understand the victim's relatives and friends who wanted her to die had their reasons for that. But killing anyone in a cold state-sanctioned way like that lessens everyone. It engenders the attitude that killing is a solution. It's wrong in what is supposed to be a time of civilisation.

That's aside from the fact that even if you agree with the death penalty, she was clearly a case where more investigation was needed as she was not at all of sound mind.

I hope she and the poor victim both RIP and the families can move on.

Agree with PPs about Trump too - how totally psychopathic and nasty to do this as a parting shot. Just have people executed to exercise and flex his power in the last few moments he still has it and appeal to the most bloodthirsty element of his following, in the current circumstances especially, that is unforgiveable. There are a lot of terrible things about Trump to choose from, but that's a new low for me.

HRTWT In this country I think she would have ended up in a high security psychiatric facility and got the long overdue mental health treatment she needed. @8.22.

A somewhat hopeful assumption. I have worked in psychiatric units for severely mentally disturbed People (often as a result of childhood abuse)Many of them are , through no fault of their own beyond rehabilitation. The ones I cared for were literally kept alive and not psychotic by suicide watch and drugs. None of them were going to get better and go home to live normal lives. So please don’t be under any illusions that with appropriate psych input these people recover. They merely exist in a safe place. Society failed them long before mental health services.

@MessAllOver

Actually, this may be an unpopular view, but the way James Bulger's killers were treated is a blot on the British justice system. It is important, if difficult sometimes, to separate out the horror of the crime from the culpability of those committing it. A child or a mentally ill adult is not as culpable as a fully functioning adult with all their faculties intact.

I remember the case well. I was a Psychology student at the time & co-created a survey to ask the public their opinions on certain elements of the way the boys were treated by the justice system. It was possibly ill advised as it was so emotive a case but it was eye opening in terms of the uniformity of the responses by the public we surveyed (most were strongly in favour of very punitive measures) There was little acknowledgement that the killers were children themselves and at least one had been badly damaged by his own childhood. Like this case, the shocking extent of the crime against the victim (in this case poor little James Bulger, and secondarily his parents and wider family) was so self evidently enormous that people seemed unable to cognitively process that the killers were damaged also, yet alone that the process they then went through in itself created further damage). One of them has made a safe transition into 'normal life' I believe, but one has not. Was the case well handled by the UK justice system? No

The point is to stop any cycle of damage so that a future killer is not created, or current one given opportunity to commit further crimes.
This - may - be achieved by killing them, but how does that help us as a society - to 'other' them and fail to deal with the root causes of such crimes? That would be the best 'justice' for the victims perhaps?
(in as much as anything can ever 'help' after your child has been taken from you- and their own life - in such a devastating manner)

@Roussette

Her parents are despicable people and if they're alive should feel thoroughly ashamed of themselves for treating her so badly

Somewhat of an understatement and not just her parents. Doctors, welfare officers, aunts and uncles, judges, social workers. What she went through was horrific. Everyone failed her.

Of course everyone failed her. Her parents ultimately failed her first as they created her and were responsible for bringing her up.

I could say the same about one of my best friends who also suffered a psychotic episode and committed suicide and was also abused and neglected as a child.

In fact - my friend - the doctors in one part of London were far more caring than where she moved to - back to her home town in the Midlands.

If I were the victim's family I would prefer to know she is dead than know she is in a prison or mental facility for life.

I don’t think you can know what you would prefer unless you have been through this tbh. But it’s very kind of you to want that relief for the murderer.

@Thinkingofabigmove
Yes, that is a very important post.
One of the Bulger killers appears to have been able to rehabilitate but the other is continually in trouble and would probably be better remaining in a secure unit than failing to manage (with potentially horrible consequences) in the 'outside world'.

I've not come across anyone legally trained to a competent level that would respond to a discussion on the death penalty with "how they would react if it happened to their child"....

Laws are made by those not directly affected or seeking revenge to come to decisions on behalf of society and not "put themselves in the position of the victim".

All sorts of problems in society come from putting the individual at the centre of law making.

It is what is best for all of us that's important, not the individuals and to foresee what other outcomes may come from decisions that someone may make due to their understandable anger.

Lots of prejudices all over this thread - for the record I'm very much against the death penalty and vote Conservative and to leave the EU.

Same for many others I know.

Lisa tortured and brutally murdered an innocent young woman. She then kidnapped the murdered woman’s baby. Why wasn’t she in a psychiatric unit as a teen/young woman? This would have prevented her from torturing a young woman and kidnapping her baby. I think all murderers and terrorists are mentally ill, but not all mentally ill people kill.

@Ifailed

What about the child who was cut from her mothers body? Her trauma lives on. Shes alive and 16 years old now

In what way does the trauma live on? From a baby's point of view how they are delivered is irrelevant, unless they are physically affected by it.

What the fuck are you talking about? Of course the trauma lives on.

Babies have no recollection of their actual birth, but presumably this now 16 year old child has grown up with relatives who were aware of the crime, even if they probably tried to shield her from the worst of it.

Now, the story is yet again plastered all over the news and social media. It is difficult to avoid.

You are delusional if you think it has no ongoing effect on the child.

I too I wouldn't have executed Hitler.

For me it's not about whether someone deserves to die, would be better off dead or any of that. It's about the act of killing. If the judicial system can kill, it makes the state, society and all of us complicit in that behaviour which a) can be a miscarriage of justice, which is horrifying and b) lowers us to the level of any killer.

I know there's killing war as well and that's also a difficult issue for me, but even in war you are not meant to kill someone in cold blood when they are helpless and not a threat. It's just in itself a terrible act. It doesn't matter if the criminal did a terrible act themselves - that's not the point.

As long as you have reprieves then executions are political events, not part of a judicial system. Knowing that perfect justice is impossible to achieve and yet sustaining the death penalty is to knowingly accept that innocent people will be executed, leaving the guilty to go free and kill again (as with John Christie) and that people in a temporary postition of power (such as Priti Patel) are given the power to reprieve or not based on how well the Tory party is doing at the polls.

Thankfully in the UK we got rid of that, and left it to the rest of the world to catch up. Sadly too slowly.

I'd rather vote not guilty and free the worst murderer, than vote guilty knowing they'd be executed. Which is ultimately what ended capital punishment in the UK.

killing in war sorry

@Topseyt yes, and it is inevitable the details would be plastered everywhere right now as a result of the last minute execution. How does that help the now 16 year old child?

@Floppywin magic circle trained and now 8 years PQE. Voted Remain.

I'm not about to start campaigning for the reintroduction of the death penalty in this country but equally I'm not about to embroil myself in the affairs of a nation state whose legal system does sanction the execution of certain individuals. Is her death at this juncture political? Absolutely. But she was sentenced to death years ago and in light of what she did, I can't say I will lose sleep over it.

Trump has reinforced himself as a truly disgusting human being. Execution is never a solution or justice.

Did the jury not know about Lisa's childhood. I knew it was horrific but missed that part.

The point is to stop any cycle of damage so that a future killer is not created, or current one given opportunity to commit further crimes.

Exactly this, as 52 has said.

While justice may hold a degree of retribution, in instances like this nothing can serve - all we can hope to do is prevent the perpetrator from doing it again, and from perpetuating the cycle in the children they "teach"/abuse.

Obviously we don’t live in a civilised society if people like Lisa Montgomery can be tortured and abused for most of their lives without anything being done about it until the damaged victim turns perpetrator and harms or kills someone that is actually loved and cared for. Her own relatives, even if not taking part in the abuse, knew of it but apparently did nothing to try to stop it. I’m not sure anyone ever cared for or loved Lisa Montgomery. What a shitty, miserable existence from start to finish.

@IEat

Do you feel this way when men are executed in the US? Similar situations with men on death row

Yes. I absolutely do. Most of them will have lead lives which were just as fucked up and full of abuse as Lisa Montgomery's.

It doesn't make their crimes any less shocking. It doesn't mean that they should ever be released again.

I see my post has been deleted . Perhaps some of the denizens of mumsnet need protection from the brutal realities of life outside their largely cossetted middle class lives.

This woman drove 170 miles to strangle a young pregnant woman and then, literally, sliced her open to get access to the unborn child and then made off with the poor thing. She deserved all she got. No sympathy from me.

@DappledOliveGroves

Oh well, never mind my Oxbridge degree, MSc and law career - I must accept I'm not the brightest because I hold a differing opinion .

You are of the opinion that the correct thing to do is to kill a woman who'd had a psychotic break after a lifetime of torture and sexual abuse at the hands of those who should have been looking after?

This is despite the fact that the death penalty in the USA is shown to be ineffective at deterring crime, as well as costly and impractical. So, even if you disagree with the stance that it's inhumane, it's fairly obvious that it serves no real purpose other than to exact vengeance, which is not what the justice system should be for.

You could take me around any category A prison in this country and show me people who I'd quite like to see dead. At least, that would be my initial, emotional response. However, the law does not exist to pander to my emotional reasoning. There would be no point to killing this people, no matter how much you or I may hate them, because it wouldn't achieve anything. I would support longer sentences for many crimes and I would support life imprisonment, for I believe that many people receive disgustingly short sentences for their crimes when they are clearly a danger to others. But I can see no real purpose to killing them.

[quote flytterbugsdog]@Topseyt yes, and it is inevitable the details would be plastered everywhere right now as a result of the last minute execution. How does that help the now 16 year old child?[/quote]
If course it doesn't help a 16 year old child.

Along with others on this thread, I am making that point to @Ifailed, who doesn't seem to believe that the trauma will have any ongoing repercussions for the now teenage girl.

I think that was clear in my post, but I will leave this one here in case it wasn't.

Nothing to do with this post. But I wonder how many people are considering themselves part of political party because they would be seen as being more intelligent.