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

It is quite rare but some killings are carried out by people who are both mentally ill and have a violent outburst (not just schizophrenia, also personality disorders etc). I could instance some quite well known cases.

My point is that statistically, it has been shown that people with mental illness are no more likely than people with no mental illness to commit violence up to and including murder.

I said that Montgomery’s plan was not the plan of a sane or sensible, ie rational person.

Why? Because it was a stupid plan? Sane people make stupid plans all the time. Because it was a bad plan, doesn’t mean it wasn’t done by a sane person.

More than 90 percent of prisoners have serious difficulties with learning and/or mental health. That alone tells us the justice system is highly discriminatory, and that it isn't working.

It tells you nothing of the sort because it is common knowledge that prison is harmful to mental health. It’s like saying that the Armed Forces recruits too many vulnerable mentally ill people because they have higher rates of suicide and PTSD than the civilian population. Prison causes mental illness just like serving in a military causes mental illness. You have no idea how many convicts were perfectly fine before being caged up and subjected to prison life.

The first female execution for nearly 70 years

Many articles are being very misleading. Montgomery was the first female federal prisoner to be executed since 1957. But she is not the first female execution in the US since 1957.
Here is an article on 16 other female executions in the US since the moratorium was lifted in 1976 (there are more, but this article just talks about the top 16 cases)
www.therichest.com/shocking/16-creepy-female-murderers-who-got-the-death-penalty-in-the-us/

@CleverCatty

I wouldnt be so sure

My children's father committed a awful crime my kids got no support. One of them was referred to Camhs 4 times. Each referral was turned down.

Even at the very end of all this, 3 of the 6 (9?) Supreme Court judges, who preside over a legal system in which the death penalty is legal, did not support the execution

But that's why the system allows for majority voting. I can't know why the 3 voted against and would hope they'd do it purely on their perception of the evidence, but can we be certain that (like myself) they're not simply opponents of the death penalty, even if just instinctively?

Hardly the same I know, but I'm reminded of the 10/2 verdict which happened during my own jury service. Of "the two", one maintained the police are all pigs and that the defendant wasn't there all, and the other insisted that the first one's view constituted reasonable doubt in and of itself

I'm not for an instant suggesting that Supreme Court justices are like that, but neither are they superhuman

The three Supreme Court judges who dissented are known liberals who oppose rhe death penalty, it doesn’t appear they dissented becayse of her personally, but more they do not agree with the death penalty for anyone.

Interesting, Bluntness; I really didn't know that

So much for my hope that they'd be completely impartial, deal only with the law and leave personal convictions out of it ...

@PlanDeRaccordement

My point is that statistically, it has been shown that people with mental illness are no more likely than people with no mental illness to commit violence up to and including murder.

Yet the subject of the thread is a woman with mental illness who did commit murder.

Because it was a bad plan, doesn’t mean it wasn’t done by a sane person.

Nor does it mean it was done by a sane one. And it depends what you you mean by a bad plan - the amateur Caesarian part actually worked - it was not a rational plan given the likely consequences.

This may have been pointed out already but one thing that many killers have in common is that they are victims of extreme abuse as children. Funnily enough, I've never seen this much sympathy for any of them (which is a good thing) so I have to conclude it's because she was a woman.

It tells you nothing of the sort because it is common knowledge that prison is harmful to mental health

It’s also common knowledge that many female prisoners have mental health disorders (around 66%) ”often linked with histories of abuse, manifest themselves in high levels of drug misuse, and are compounded by the effects of imprisonment“

www.ohrn.nhs.uk/resource/policy/InformationNeedsWomenPrisoners.pdf

Interestingly this US study echoes the same figure:

www.themarshallproject.org/2017/06/22/the-mental-health-crisis-facing-women-in-prison

I don't think victim's families should have any say on what happens to perpetrators. I want a justice system, not a vigilante system.

@Arobase

I hate the fact that Trump is ordering all these people to be killed in such a rush essentially because he can and because it gives him a hard-on.. After last week, anything he orders should have been automatically put on hold.

What a thoroughly idiotic post. Trump gave assent to what the court trials have decided. By our standards, the US is a violent nation. Their appetite for judicial killing is hardly the fault of any president.

Not idiotic at all.

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/dec/15/trump-administration-us-death-penalty-executions

@unmarkedbythat

I don't think victim's families should have any say on what happens to perpetrators. I want a justice system, not a vigilante system.

On one side I think that’s fair. On another I struggle to believe that if this was your child she’d murdered you’d not wish to habe a voice.

So I do think they should have a say, but the final decision should not be theirs, but their input should be heard. I can’t imagine the trauma her mother felt finding her.

Mental health is an issue, no one mentally healthy would habe done what she did. In fact most heinous crimes arguably are not committed by mentally healthy people. Does this mean we do not punish them according to thr law?

Because the law is basically if you knew what you were doing, you understood it was wrong and why it was wrong, and you friggen did it anyway, then you’re punished. The mental health issues comes into the sentencing arena.

And for Lisa it was she absolutely knew what she was doing, she understood fully it was wrong and why, and she friggen did it anyway. And she did it cold heartedly to benefit herself.

So was she mentally ill, sure without a shadow of a doubt. Does that mean she wasn’t culpable and didn’t know what she was doing wss wrong, like you or I know, absolutely not.

Should her mental Illness mean she should have been spared the death penalty when it came to sentencing, well I’d have thought yes, but the Supreme Court judges are way way better judges of that than anyone on here and when they reviewed it,,,whatever was presented, they said no, it did not mean the law should not be applied.

@Puzzledandpissedoff

Interesting, Bluntness; I really didn't know that

So much for my hope that they'd be completely impartial, deal only with the law and leave personal convictions out of it ...

Can't speak for anyone else, but personally I am a massive fan of consciences. Otherwise you can excuse all the evil in the world by saying "well of course, I don't like rounding up and killing them. But hey that's what the law says, and I can't let my personal feelings interfere with that ...."

The people that hid Anne Frank were breaking the law. The people that killed her were obeying it.. Pretty much sums up "the law" and my opinion on people who bleat on about it too much.

@Puzzledandpissedoff

Interesting, Bluntness; I really didn't know that

So much for my hope that they'd be completely impartial, deal only with the law and leave personal convictions out of it ...

The Supreme Court is a fundamentally political body too. The way it rules on an issue like this is going to be determined by whether it's stacked with Democratic or Republican nominees at any given time. That's why RBG was trying so hard to hold on - so Trump wouldn't get the chance to nominate her replacement.

I can acknowledge that the sentencing of Lisa Montgomery to death was legal according to US law at the time it happened (although as I understand it, it may not have been legally unimpeachable to carry through the execution if she could not understand what is happening). But it can still be something that I or others consider unjust and/or immoral. There are immoral and unjust laws and applications of those laws.

[quote Roussette]Not idiotic at all.

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/dec/15/trump-administration-us-death-penalty-executions[/quote]
Oh please. The Graun !

If I were to offer you an article from Breitbart would you read it, let alone allow yourself to be convinced by it?

There are immoral and unjust laws and applications of those laws.

and a school of thought that it's a citizens duty to break immoral laws.

Something Americans should be used to ...

[quote TowandaForever]@CleverCatty

I wouldnt be so sure

My children's father committed a awful crime my kids got no support. One of them was referred to Camhs 4 times. Each referral was turned down. [/quote]
That's awful. How could they do that?

Oh purleeeeease.... you can honestly put Breitbart in the same category as the Guardian on right and left? Laughable.

OK, here's another one for you... I feel quite grubby clicking on it. DailyMail.

Headlines...
Private executioners paid cash, lethal drugs from a secret pharmacy and middle-of-the-night executions: How Trump and Barr have used their final days to put to death the most federal prisoners since WW2

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9086651/Trump-using-final-days-execute-federal-prisoners-WWII.html

Hope that suits better....😂

Sorry that was to @Jaypreen

Personally I am a massive fan of consciences. Otherwise you can excuse all the evil in the world by saying "well of course, I don't like rounding up and killing them. But hey that's what the law says, and I can't let my personal feelings interfere with that ..."

I genuinely do get this, but as so often there's a question of balance and when personal convictions should be allowed to override legislation

Whatever we all think of Trump he didn't instigate this particular framework, and though I disagree with it personally I can't stretch to seeing it as some Hitleresque thing with which "the troops" have little choice but to agree

I realise that sounds contradictory - after all it seems the 3 justices did disagree - but I guess what I'm suggesting is that, within a democratically agreed system, it's better to campaign against a perceived unfair law than just regard it as dispensable

On one side I think that’s fair. On another I struggle to believe that if this was your child she’d murdered you’d not wish to habe a voice.

It's because I know if my child were murdered I would wish the worst I can think of on the killer that I don't want sentences to be determined by victims. If someone murdered my babies I would want them to die horribly, I would want all sorts of things- but it would not be right for the state to allow me to have any say in it.

for Lisa it was she absolutely knew what she was doing, she understood fully it was wrong and why, and she friggen did it anyway. And she did it cold heartedly to benefit herself.

It’s these kind of blank assertions that give this thread its strong tabloid odour. Baseless assumptions about someone you’ve never met, let alone examined psychiatrically.

@TatianaBis

for Lisa it was she absolutely knew what she was doing, she understood fully it was wrong and why, and she friggen did it anyway. And she did it cold heartedly to benefit herself.

It’s these kind of blank assertions that give this thread its strong tabloid odour. Baseless assumptions about someone you’ve never met, let alone examined psychiatrically.

But that was the basis for the trial to go ahead, she was deemed to have culpability after the medical assessments. It’s not something I made up. It’s not my assertion, it’s the doctors who assessed her views.