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

From my own POV I do feel sorry for both of them but I have more sympathy for the dead mother and the legacy that child has. As far as crimes go, that is up there with the worst.

Most people consider raping and torturing children to be up there with the worst as well. Though a lot of people don't seem to like it when horrendously abused children grow up to become extremely damaged adults but nobody seems interested in doing anything about it. Much easier to label people 'bad', 'evil', then lock them up, (kill them in this case), because anything preventative is expensive and difficult.

All the people who knew what was happening and did nothing. Her cousin was a deputy sheriff, she told him what was happening, and he drove her home and gave her back to the people who were abusing her. Why would anyone do that? How could anyone be told what he was told - that she was being raped, beaten and that the men were urinating on her - and then take her back?

@LaceyBetty

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

It's shocking actually. It suggests a low IQ and low emotional intelligence.

I work in the justice system and DH works in a psychiatric function within prisons, so many of the people we work with have experienced extreme trauma and abuse. Countries with the death penalty such as the US don't have lower recidivism rates, in fact they are high. If we really aspire to improving society for all of us we need to look towards countries such as Norway who have very low rates of recidivism but address the root cause of behaviour and empower people to change, they also treat their criminal justice staff as professionals, risk management is a multi agency holistic process and it works. Low rates of crime and recidivism are the best outcome for the public but that requires societal change not calls to lock them all up or put them against a wall and shoot them.

Killing a mentally ill person is not justice.

This.

This execution wasn't about justice, it was Trump's final two fingers up at 'leftie liberals'. The irony is that the utter scum he surrounds himself with are also fiercely 'pro life', but only some lives, and certainly not the lives of abused children and women.

The only saving grace in this is that Lisa Montgomery may find some peace in death, because so many people failed her in her life.

Absolutely everything about this is absolutely tragic, including the fact that dying must at some level have been a blessed relief, to no longer have to live inside her own head.

Her abuse
Her hideous crime and the transferring of a lifetime of suffering onto another family too
Her execution

The 'state' and all the societal protection it can give had two chances to stop the tragedy - first, when Lisa was an abused child, secondly when she came before a court as clearly an absolutely not sane person and should have been committed to an institution.

'Sob story' - honestly, if the person who wrote that has read Lisa's background story then they should hang their head in absolute shame.

@Mrgrinch

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?

yes. There actually have been plenty of horrific cases in the UK and USA of men attacking their pregnant partners* often in a bid to end the pregnancy. Sometimes with knives, sometimes punches in the stomach, sometimes with spiked drinks. In some cases this has resulted in the death of the mother, the baby or both. I think those people are awful, heionous scum. I would not choose to kill them.

*Fun fact: the most common cause of mortality for pregnant women in the West is murder. More often than not by their partners or ex-partners.
And that is before you consider the women that arent outright murdered but for whom abuse either escalates or starts during pregnancy. If we executed all those men we would run out of execution drugs pretty quickly.

DappledOliveGroves

Do you know what psychotic means? It means someone has lost touch with reality to the extent that they don’t have the capacity to know right from wrong. By definition, a psychotic person cannot ‘know what they are doing is wrong’.

I don’t agree with the death penalty in any way, shape or form. But it would be naive to think she would have got the help she needed in a forensic psychiatric unit.

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

Yes well that's why the victims aren't the ones who make the judgment and choose the punishment.

I think the execution was a disgusting act that shames America.

Whether psychotic, abused, a victim - she knew what she did was wrong.

Erm no, if she was psychotic at the time, she would have been hallucinating/delusional and out of contact with reality.

@ArosAdraDrosDolig

DappledOliveGroves

Do you know what psychotic means? It means someone has lost touch with reality to the extent that they don’t have the capacity to know right from wrong. By definition, a psychotic person cannot ‘know what they are doing is wrong’.

I don’t agree with the death penalty in any way, shape or form. But it would be naive to think she would have got the help she needed in a forensic psychiatric unit.

Xpost. Quite.

Don't know about anyone else but I've often noticed those in favour of the death penalty are usually not the brightest?

@formerbabe

Don't know about anyone else but I've often noticed those in favour of the death penalty are usually not the brightest?

Yep.

Great posts @JamieFrasersSassenach and @MessAllOver

The death penalty to me is a way for society to avoid addressing its problems and the underlying factors that lead to crimes. I don’t expect anyone to forgive Lisa for what she did, but trying to understand why she did it could help others

all formerbabe You sound very bright yourself with that comment.

as ever, two wrongs don't make a right.

No-one will have any empathy with the perpetrator as it is an unimaginably awful crime but state sanctioned state execution is not a sign of a healthy society.

@formerbabe

Don't know about anyone else but I've often noticed those in favour of the death penalty are usually not the brightest?

I'd consider myself highly educated and am in support of the death penalty

You shouldnt be snooty/snobby about linking peoples opinions and their education

"Justice" is a generic term, but the reality is that different people see it as different things:

• revenge
• rehabilitation
• protecting society

It can rarely (ever?) be all three. In this case, it seems it is only the first - revenge. Since rehabilitation is not possible once someone is dead and prison already serves the last (protection).

Desperately sad.

Depressing stuff however you look at it.

Support for death penalty is a good predictor of Brexit support ( with 70% accuracy according to a British Election Study).

I think the execution was a disgusting act that shames America.

America has a lot more to be ashamed of than putting to death people who have committed unspeakable and heinous acts 🤷‍♀️ like it's abysmal gun control laws

Guessing you wouldn't have executed Hitler either 🤔

@Floppywin

as ever, two wrongs don't make a right.

No-one will have any empathy with the perpetrator as it is an unimaginably awful crime but state sanctioned state execution is not a sign of a healthy society.

I have empathy for her

@blueangel19

all formerbabe You sound very bright yourself with that comment.

I don't think my comment offered any indication as to my intelligence level...

I do however think a lot of the comments in favour of this heinous act of "justice" are incredibly short sighted and ill thought out.

That article though states she was the first woman to be executed since 1953..... what about Aileen Wuernos who was executed in 2002, they seem to have forgotten about her!

I think they mean the first federal execution of a woman in the US. Most crimes in the US fall under state jurisdiction, including most murders, and are prosecuted as such. And states differ on whether their laws support the death penalty. About 30 times as much crime falls under state laws as federal.

Federal crimes include crimes that take place on US Federal property and crimes that have a national or federal interest.

Personally, I think this case demonstrates the failure of society, and US systems specifically, in every way. US systems failed to identify and safeguard Montgomery, they failed to offer her mental health support before her crime, and they failed in their ability to have a justice system that is capable of rehabilitation and the prevention of recidivism, so in its failure all it can think to do is kill people. I oppose the death penalty in all cases, although I admit there are some people I wouldn't be first in line to go to bat for, but I think this is an egregious case and an enormous abuse of Trump's power. It is proven that the US justice system and the death penalty in particular is hugely racially biased, and that it has executed people who in all likelihood are completely innocent. That is monstrous.