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

@FuriousWithTheNHS

Exactly. If you took every sob story into account the prisons would be empty and we'd all be living in fear of crime, violence and abuse every single day. Let's remember they are there not merely to punishthembut to protect and offer respite to the rest of us.

How does killing a criminal shape at all whether prisons are empty?

Exactly. If you took every sob story into account the prisons would be empty and we'd all be living in fear of crime, violence and abuse every single day. Let's remember they are there not merely to punish them but to protect and offer respite to the rest of us

This

I am sure progressives next step would have been pushing that she was not longer a danger. Mentally fine and let out of to do the crimes again.

@FuriousWithTheNHS

Look into most offenders you will find many abuse victims and mental health sufferers, Male and female. Justice isn't always happy or comfortable

Exactly. If you took every sob story into account the prisons would be empty and we'd all be living in fear of crime, violence and abuse every single day. Let's remember they are there not merely to punish them but to protect and offer respite to the rest of us.

There is an awful thread at the moment of a very violent and controlling domestic abuser and rapist whose victim is distraught because he's apparently suidical. I don't dount if we delved into his past we'd find some mitigating circumstances but so what? We need to be careful that our urge to compassion doesn't start to make the perpetrator the victim and the real victim irrelevant.

Some people are just beyond help and redemption however sad their backstory.

I dont want to get dragged into discussing that thread too much on here. But talking of violent rape and domestic abuse generally. There is a part of me that considers doing that to the person you claim to love to be one of the worst things you can do. But would it help the victims if we had the death penalty for that? If anything, I think it would greatly reduce the number of people reporting rape, because they dont want to be the cause of their attackers death. Particularly when the person who hurt them is the person they may still love, and the person who may also be the father of their children. Those men know that - that is why they frequently threaten their victims with suicide. (In the rare event the cowards do kill themselves though that decision was theirs and the fault of no-one else). Would the death penalty in that case be for the victim? Or for you to feel better about yourself? When people commit awful crimes they deserve to have those crimes exposed to the world, be condemned by society for those crimes and to go to prison. Where there is mental illness they deserve treatment. Sometimes they deserve punishment and treatment.

Even in the case of child rape (the most awful crime I can imagine) sentancing the perpetrator to death is unlikely to help the child. In fact it can further traumatise them (see Maya Angelou's autobiography as an example)

@FuriousWithTheNHS this is not just about whether her background excuses her crime - it's about the fact that all of the agencies who should have protected Lisa as a child, and who had numerous opportunities to do so, did not. They, together with her mother and stepfather are complicit in the terrible murder of Bobby-Jo Stinnett.

And, if a society can simply 'punish' such heinous crimes by murdering the criminal without accepting some of the blame themselves and ensuring other children are not let down as Lisa was, then that is lazy, short-sighted and a failure to protect future victims of such crimes.

@FuriousWithTheNHS

Look into most offenders you will find many abuse victims and mental health sufferers, Male and female. Justice isn't always happy or comfortable

Exactly. If you took every sob story into account the prisons would be empty and we'd all be living in fear of crime, violence and abuse every single day. Let's remember they are there not merely to punish them but to protect and offer respite to the rest of us.

There is an awful thread at the moment of a very violent and controlling domestic abuser and rapist whose victim is distraught because he's apparently suidical. I don't dount if we delved into his past we'd find some mitigating circumstances but so what? We need to be careful that our urge to compassion doesn't start to make the perpetrator the victim and the real victim irrelevant.

Some people are just beyond help and redemption however sad their backstory.

Well naturally. Obviously if we can't kill them, we'd let everybody off scot free if we took there own circumstances into account, and have them wandering the streets. There'd be no option of incarceration in prison or a psychiatric institution at all. That'd be ridiculous.

No one on here has said she should be let off, just that she shouldn't have been killed. She is obviously dangerous to society and should be incarcerated somewhere but her "sob story" (and that's a lovely way of describing someone's own parents hiring them out to be gang raped, by the way) would indicate that this is not a matter of being inherently evil but of being so extensively abused and consequently damaged that she committed something as heinous as she did.

@blueangel19 It is actually much cheaper to keep someone permanently in a prison or psychiatric facility than to go through the process of executing them. Not to mention the waste of medical resources (and doctors) at the time America is fighting a pandemic.

The death penalty is a cop-out. It allows us to "other" those who commit horrific crimes and pretend that they exist in a vacuum rather than in the context of a society which has usually failed them utterly. There are a few violent offenders who are perhaps inherently evil but many more are a product of abuse, neglect, violence and dysfunctional families.

Where is the justice in executing a woman who was apparently so delusional and mentally ill at the time of her crime that she was completely detached from reality and who had no idea why she was being executed?

I am against the death penalty in all circumstances. Sometimes cases really test that belief but I continue to hold it because if it's wrong to kill to enact justice, it's wrong. The flip side of that is that punishment, or rehabilitation, should be appropriate. Lisa's life story is deeply depressing as it shows how hard it is to prevent crime happening as a consequence of abuse and completely dysfunctional family dynamics. On top of all that, this is a clear abuse of presidential power for a sick sense of personal kudos by Trump. He really is a disgusting person.

@blueangel19

Exactly. If you took every sob story into account the prisons would be empty and we'd all be living in fear of crime, violence and abuse every single day. Let's remember they are there not merely to punish them but to protect and offer respite to the rest of us

This

I am sure progressives next step would have been pushing that she was not longer a danger. Mentally fine and let out of to do the crimes again.

Who has argued this?

Do you actually understand that the opposite of your "progressives" is "regressives"?

What do you want to go back to?

@blueangel19

Exactly. If you took every sob story into account the prisons would be empty and we'd all be living in fear of crime, violence and abuse every single day. Let's remember they are there not merely to punish them but to protect and offer respite to the rest of us

This

I am sure progressives next step would have been pushing that she was not longer a danger. Mentally fine and let out of to do the crimes again.

Pretty big difference between killing someone and keeping them in prison for the rest of one's life. The latter, being the alternative here.

And pretty gross to suggest her background is a "sob story".

I find this so sad. There is nothing good that can come from this.

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

no. So much no.

@ChocolateSantaisthebestkind

An unpopular view, but I think this was right. It gave comfort to the victims family, after an horrific crime and it released the perpetrator from life long suffering. Mental health incarceration in the US is not always a positive therapeutic experience.

I think that is one way of looking at what was probably an end to suffering for Lisa.

But what revolts me is that there is nothing in the state approach to execution that is anything other than vengeful and punitive. Any mercy in this act is an accidental by product, so does not mitigate the actions of an unjust system.

And whilst I sympathise to the utmost with the families of any victim of violent crime, the whole point of a justice system is to remove the trial and consequences from the raw retaliation that must surely be felt by families. Without that we are back to lynch mobs. I am sure I would be tempted to wish the perpetrator of a crime against my family dead, but I am grateful that here in the UK that decision is out of my hands and the position that I agree with morally is maintained.

It just isn’t civil to execute people abd I believe that it is detrimental, overall, to societies in which it happens.

I am very firmly against the death penalty.

However, one does have to wonder whether people would have the same outrage if this crime was committed by a male?

There was a case in the uk recently where a woman in a psychotic state murdered a child in a park, all planned, she had attacked her own family previously and the murder charge was dropped in court, she was indefinitely detained in hospital and will probably remain there forever. There was no mention as to her early life and if years of abuse had contributed to her mental health problems but I think it isn’t unlikely. There is a marked difference in how we treat offenders between the UK and the USA.

I hate the death penalty and would feel uncomfortable with it ever being reinstated here.

Women in prison are pretty much 99.9% victims of domestic violence and abuse, I suspect for men it’s still a high percentage but not universal. People who have already been so traumatically failed should not be killed.

I will also say there are men who have committed horrendous murders for their own twisted sexual pleasure who have served time, been released and gone on to murder again. They should never have been released, but why is it a woman who has been executed now? It’s about that idiot Trump wanted to looks strong and to him women are more disposable.

@blueangel19

Exactly. If you took every sob story into account the prisons would be empty and we'd all be living in fear of crime, violence and abuse every single day. Let's remember they are there not merely to punish them but to protect and offer respite to the rest of us

This

I am sure progressives next step would have been pushing that she was not longer a danger. Mentally fine and let out of to do the crimes again.

No one has said that Lisa Montgomery shouldn't have been punished for her crime, to suggest otherwise is ludicrous. You can recognise how awful the crime was, and at the same time acknowledge how awful LM's life was. One does not cancel out the other.

Of course Lisa Montgomery should have been held accountable, but there are other ways to do that besides the death penalty. If you've read anything about her case, you will see how let down she was by her lawyers. LM was brain damaged by the abuse she suffered. None of her history was taken in to account at her trial.

@Butterymuffin

I am against the death penalty in all circumstances. Sometimes cases really test that belief but I continue to hold it because if it's wrong to kill to enact justice, it's wrong. The flip side of that is that punishment, or rehabilitation, should be appropriate. Lisa's life story is deeply depressing as it shows how hard it is to prevent crime happening as a consequence of abuse and completely dysfunctional family dynamics. On top of all that, this is a clear abuse of presidential power for a sick sense of personal kudos by Trump. He really is a disgusting person.

He really is. There are not many people I wish to see imprisoned but Trump is one whose detainment is in the interests of the vast majority.

@blueangel19

You write as though the death penalty is quite common around the world. In fact only 50 countries still have it and only 20 countries actually used it in 2020. More than 90% of all reported executions last year took place in just five countries – China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Egypt.
You can keep people safe without beheading execution hanging and needles.

@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.

Yes that trauma will live on unless the child is unaware of her history or has had some very good counselling. Even physically it is not the same as being born by Csection and placed in your mother's arms to feed within minutes, though she clearly survived it thank goodness. Psychologically - being born as a result of one of the most notorious crimes, your Mother dead, the case splashed all over the papers, the murderer on death row your whole life. Appalling for the child too. The question is: will executing the perpetrator bring her (the most direct victim of this crime who is still alive) any peace? I wonder if they have 'victim impact statements' in the US? I don't think that a VIS should be the most influential factor or that a 16 year old should be given that 'responsibility' but a voice in the process is important). I hope that that child finds peace in her life.

(I do not agree with the death penalty in this or any other case btw)

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

This is a shocking response. To lack any empathy and have a total lack of understanding of knowing your own mother was murdered in this way, that it was to get hold of you, to know what happened after to your family, to grow up without your biological mother because of this brutal murder, is beyond shocking.

I also can’t believe someone actually wrote this.

However, one does have to wonder whether people would have the same outrage if this crime was committed by a male?

Absolutely:

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/oct/02/the-myth-of-the-she-devil-why-we-judge-female-criminals-more-harshly

The whole case is full of shocking sadism and violence.

The sadism and violence of Lisa Montgomery's parents and stepparents. The sadism and violence of her crime. The sadism and violence of the US judicial system and especially the cat and mouse last minute reprieves later reversed.

The death penalty is immoral.

The death penalty is a cop-out. It allows us to "other" those who commit horrific crimes and pretend that they exist in a vacuum rather than in the context of a society which has usually failed them utterly.

excellent points. Sadly I think that othering is a trademark of American Society. Only such an othering society could allow tens of millions to live without a safety net of proper medical care.

I'm not going to lose sleep over the fact she has been given the death penalty . I read about the case, I read about the abuse she suffered, but I cannot get the image of a heavily pregnant mother being strangled and cut open, with her mother then finding her daughter's body with her grandchild missing, out of my mind.

Whether psychotic, abused, a victim - she knew what she did was wrong. What would be the point in keeping her alive for decades more in a maximum security facility? Assuming the victim's family supported the sentence, then who am I to say they should have accepted a life sentence rather than execution? God forbid anything like that happened to my child but if it did, I can't imagine I'd be magnanimous and would most probably welcome the death penalty for the perpetrator.