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

@Bluntness100

I think this is very sad.

Many people do heinous crimes, but I believe that she was indeed brain damaged and suffering severe mental health disorders as her legal team stated, because I don’t believe anyone would do what she did out of anything other than severely ill/mentally incapable

However I also think she must have been deemed fit to stand trial and to know the difference between right snd wrong.

Overall a very sad situation for all involved.

@Bluntless100 You seem to think you are very clever. Do you really know the real thing that happened?

I see a lot of you Bluntness just saying it.

yy teeny . I agree.

The abuse has led to the death of two women and so many lived ruined. People knew what was happening and couldn't be bothered to help a little girl.

I pity her and am truly appalled by her actions.

i don't believe that a civilised society commits people to their death.
shame on America.

She was assessed as mentally fit to stand trial and deemed able to know right from wrong - so the argument that she was too mentally ill to have known what she was doing and should be in a psychiatric facility is wishful thinking

In a very dodgy assessment. If we are going to assume that people who do these assessments are infallible, we are going down a very dangerous path.

But even if it was an accurate assessment, none of it justifies the sheer cold-blooded barbarity of capital punishment.

I didn’t even know about this case until yesterday when the stay of execution was announced - I’m shocked that less than 48 hours later it has been rescinded and she is dead.

She committed a heinous crime. My personal feelings are that the death penalty is always wrong, there are no shades to it. It is state sponsored murder. She should have spent her life incarcerated there’s no argument there, but no, I do not believe she should have been killed. I would say that even if she hadn’t been the victim of decades of abuse, if she hadn’t been mentally impaired. I don’t believe anyone should be executed.

I think Lisa Montgomery was a victim. She was a victim of the abuse she suffered. She was failed in that she was not protected.

But there is no doubt she was also a cold blooded murderer who knew what she was doing when she committed it.

You can be both, one does not excuse the other. The fact she was once a victim who was failed, does not change the fact she was also a cold blooded murderer who planned that murder fir months on end, and did it to benefit herself and knew what she was doing.

As a pp said, she carried out that murder in a state where murder carries the death penalty. As much as I disagree with the death penalty, the law was applied, this was her sentence.

I think people need to try to seperate the two. Yes she was a victim. Yes she was failed, yes she had mental health problems, as do many killers, I don’t believe any sane persons carries out a premeditated murder. but let’s be clear she also had culpability, she knew exactly what she was doing, she knew it was wrong and illegal, she was a cold blooded murderer.

We can’t mix the two up. Being abused yes. Failed, yes. Cold blooded murderer. Yes.

Many children are abused. Some of it horrific. The overwhelming majority do not grow up to murder.

I did wonder but if people are going to claim that what she could have went through what she did and turn out fine "because other people have done" then they should at least know what they're commenting on.

While I don’t think anyone can through such a horrific childhood and turn out “fine”, there is a ocean between fine and murderer.
In addition, being mentally ill doesn’t make a person more likely to be violent to another person. That’s a common myth and why mental illness has a stigma.
www.time-to-change.org.uk/media-centre/responsible-reporting/violence-mental-health-problems

Even if it was an accurate assessment, none of it justifies the sheer cold-blooded barbarity of capital punishment

I agree with this bit, but how do you know it was "a dodgy assessment" as stated?
Do you have some specialist knowledge in the area, and even if so were you there?

I threw up after reading about what was done to her. Stories of abuse always leave me shaken but never like this. She was born into pure hell.

@Arobase

She was assessed as mentally fit to stand trial and deemed able to know right from wrong - so the argument that she was too mentally ill to have known what she was doing and should be in a psychiatric facility is wishful thinking

In a very dodgy assessment. If we are going to assume that people who do these assessments are infallible, we are going down a very dangerous path.

But even if it was an accurate assessment, none of it justifies the sheer cold-blooded barbarity of capital punishment.

Barbarity of a lethal injection?

Did Lisa Montgomery have a rope tied around her neck, by someone who had posed as a friend, then have her unborn child sliced out of her abdomen and haemorrhage to death? That's barbarity.

How many times on MN or in the greater world has there been a public outpouring of sympathy for a male killer who may have suffered horrendous abuse as a child?

It's a fair question, Handsoff, and reminds me of a recent thread about the Philpotts. Despite the judge's remarks many were desperate to paint Mairead as some poor victim, but no such thing was said about Mick (and a good thing too IMO)

I agree the death penalty is barabaric.

I struggle with agreeing that she was incorrectly deemed fit to stand trial and didn’t have culpability. For the very simple reason this was a murder she planned over many months, where she had many people fooled, and even taught herself to give a c section and carried one out successfully. And she did it to benefit herself. So I can see how that validates being culpable.

I thought the death penalty was really still in place just to act as some kind of deterrent.

Although we say shame on America its allowed - I am pretty sure Biden will change this, no one person should have this much power.

Her death saddens me, I also hope she is in peace.

Not sure how it works - several Psychiarists have to decide if they are clinically insane or not. I don't think anyone on MN is qualified to say she was or wasn't. The act is utterly incomprehensible.

I thought the death penalty was really still in place just to act as some kind of deterrent.

This case is almost the pitch perfect poster child for why that's a crock.

Pierrepoint made a similar point in his book. All the people he hanged (at £1-11s a pop) were a clear testament to the low quality "deterrent" argument which people like to hide behind.

There are certain professions/positions I could not work in because I would not be able to look beyond for example the sadistic, premeditated murder committed by this woman. I am not filled with any feelings of satisfaction over her execution. However, seeing the stories of unimaginable cruelty carried out by perpetrators damaged in their childhood does not take away from the sheer brutality and inhumanity of their crimes. Someone else mentioned the thread of the suicidal rapist with a terrible childhood and an OP who felt so bad for him in spite of his crime. Everyone, including myself, urged her not to be manipulated by misplaced pity. The prison is full of brutal criminals with horrendous childhoods. Deep down if really honest with myself, I believe the world is better off without them in it. This woman didn’t just act on the spur of the moment, she went to great length to prepare for such a horrific crime and I cannot muster up the same level of shock and upset, so many do on this thread. It takes away from the real victims, the murdered woman and her baby.

[quote PlanDeRaccordement]I did wonder but if people are going to claim that what she could have went through what she did and turn out fine "because other people have done" then they should at least know what they're commenting on.

While I don’t think anyone can through such a horrific childhood and turn out “fine”, there is a ocean between fine and murderer.
In addition, being mentally ill doesn’t make a person more likely to be violent to another person. That’s a common myth and why mental illness has a stigma.
www.time-to-change.org.uk/media-centre/responsible-reporting/violence-mental-health-problems[/quote]
I was thinking rather more the consistent exposure to violence and assault during her formative years and the conspicuous lack of moral guidance as having the greater effect.

I'm aware that the vast majority of abused people do not turn out to be murderers. I also think that a lot of people on this thread have massively underestimated the extent of the abuse, partly because they'll have heard similar stories in plenty of other cases but also due to the fact that, several posters on here seem unable to recognise someone as both a victim of a terrible crime and a perpetrator of a terrible crime. I understand that it's often easier to see people as absolute villains but when people are advocating the death penalty based on how they FEEL about this, rather than whether the death penalty is effective or humane or infallible (no, no and no) or saying "I don't support the death penalty but in this case it's justified" (which is being for the death penalty, surely?) then I do think I think it's important to highlight that a person isn't absolutely evil from day one. Else it's easy not to care that they have just been killed by the state.

I know that I've spent this thread jumping to defend Montgomery and I should clarify that I absolutely DO think that she's a criminal and would have supported life incarceration for her because, as it's been pointed out, 1) not all abused children grow up to be murderers and 2) this was an obviously premeditated, horrific crime. But I don't think that's a reason to kill her, I don't think that's a power the state should hold. And I think that, while her background does not excuse what she did, to overlook it entirely is conducive to the mindset of some that the state has merely exterminated a problem, rather than killed a person.

Her execution was simply the final act of violence against her. Her whole life has been a horrific lesson that violence against the weak and vulnerable is justified. The state confirmed it to her many times before, and especially now with this final act. The fact she had done violence herself doesn't change that.

The 52-year-old strangled a pregnant woman before cutting out and kidnapping her baby in Missouri in 2004.

Her victim, 23-year-old Bobbie Jo Stinnett, bled to death but her baby was safely recovered and returned to her family
I mean, Im not sad she's dead tbh.

@TeenyTinyDustinHoffman
Thank you for expanding on your thoughts. I too am against death penalty but the US is not my country and they have decided to have it through the democratic process. So my concern is purely, did they follow their own rules? And I think they did. Montgomery is not innocent and wrongly convicted, she is not clinically insane, she is not so low on intelligence she is not culpable, etc etc. I do think the death penalty is on its way out even there as more and more states are abolishing.

I agree that it is easy to paint murderers as “pure villains” as you said. But the truth is that humans are complex and it is actually not unusual for a victim to also be a criminal and vice versa. I just don’t think being a victim excuses a person from any crime they have or will commit. And because mental illness (including PTSD from violent trauma) doesn’t make a person more likely to be violent to others, that posters are just plain wrong in saying that if she had not been abused, she would not have become a murderer. The evidence and studies show there is no link between mental illness caused by abuse and becoming a murderer.

@Horehound

The 52-year-old strangled a pregnant woman before cutting out and kidnapping her baby in Missouri in 2004.

Her victim, 23-year-old Bobbie Jo Stinnett, bled to death but her baby was safely recovered and returned to her family
I mean, Im not sad she's dead tbh.

You don't have to be sad about this to agree or disagree with the death penalty. There are plenty of criminals (and to be honest, plenty of people who aren't officially dubbed criminals) who I'd be quite happy to see dead and plenty who I'd be fairly ambivalent about. That still doesn't mean that the state should kill them. I don't disagree with what's happened because I think Lisa Montgomery was a good person, I disagree with it because I think it's an ineffective, inhumane part, scarily arbitrary part of a judicial system that panders to emotions rather than rationality or justice and has no place in a civilised society.

@PolloDePrimavera this is a very interesting perspective. DS 9 has been doing debating lessons with school and the topic next week is the death penalty (a bit heavy for 9). I asked DS his thoughts and he said maybe people on death row want to die as it’s better than being in prison. I didn’t quite understand how death may be a better alternative for prisoners (from their perspective) until I read your post.

for those saying would posters have been feeling empathy towards a male etc., well yes back in 1995 there was a British/American man executed and it was bigger in the news at the time than this story has been.

I expect the same people disagreeing with the death penalty today would absolutely have felt the same way. No-one thought the murderer was a great guy, no-one wanted him released but to have a civilised country execute someone was shocking to see in real time as the appeals ran out.

That doesn't take away from any of the victims, no-one is supporting the murderer they are saying the death penalty is not part of a civilised society.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Ingram

On the one hand to say that murder is the most terrible crime, but on the other hand that society can decide collectively to ask one of its own to murder/execute on society's behalf is not ok and is not without consequences along the road and leads to extremism.

We either value life and don't commit murder or we think we can pick and choose who lives/dies. No-one thinks a murderer is equal to the victim's life, but we are not to turn ourselves into murderers to seek justice. We'd hand over state sanctioned murder at our peril, so wise to be careful what we wish for and the start of the road is to say: death penalty fine with me and not able to see further than the end of that sentence.