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

I don't believe she was having a psychotic episode at all she very much knew what she was doing

How would you know? There have been schizophrenics who 'planned' to kill people because voices told them they had to.

There is a high profile terrorist considered one of the most dangerous in the world back in the UK. The irony a judge in the US let him out of prison because he was obese and could get COVID. Where is the outrage?

What would be the point in keeping her alive for decades more in a maximum security facility?

To punish her. She’s not being punished now is she? How does ending her punishment help the victim? What is the point in keeping any murdered alive?

@Justcallmecaptainobvious, I think very many people - including posters saying the execution of Montogmery was wrong - would've been happy for them to hang.

But they don't fit the demographic we give a shit about, so that's fine. Underclass innit.

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.

@thedancingbear

^Did you start a thread for each of those people? If not, why not? Doesn't each of those wasted lives matter?

Be the change you want to see and all that.^

No, I actively campaign in real life around those matters. What do you fucking do?

Death penalties aren't my jam, I volunteer with animal shelters and homeless services instead. But it's beside the point really. Unless you're starting a thread for each and every one of those death penalty victims and getting no engagement, I don't see why you're complaining about someone starting this one. You can't put the workload on other people.

I'm normally the first person to be for the vast majority of criminals (without all reasonable doubt) who have committed heinous crimes to be executed but in this case this poor, poor woman should not have been executed.

I can understand the victim's family wanting her to be executed but you have to have some degree of compassion for this poor, troubled woman - in many ways she is probably suffering less as she's dead. Her parents are despicable people and if they're alive should feel thoroughly ashamed of themselves for treating her so badly.

‘ Justice isn't always happy or comfortable’

State execution isn’t justice it’s revenge.

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

Hmm someone who claims to be 'highly educated' who doesn't know the difference between its and it's.

As if the death penalty and poor gun control were not both shameful.

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.

@thedancingbear

Wittering about these things on MN achieves nothing, except betray your own bias and ignorance

Disagree. Discussions on social media are a huge influence on many people’s opinions. The opinions of people are what drive political acts. This execution - and the ten others under Trump - are deeply political acts.

Montgomery’s lawyer summed it up perfectly. She said: "The craven bloodlust of a failed administration was on full display tonight.”

does it matter if some of them are executed because they are deemed not worthy to walk amongst us?

You might find it mattered if your child was one that became “not worthy” of walking among you. It’s only a matter of changing the law where you live to make that a possibility. And if you support LMs death then you’d support your child’s if the law said it should happen. Right? It wouldn’t matter really because there are billions of other people on the planet.

Ah, the old "IQ as proxy for being wonderful" argument. Much beloved of people with low IQs.

www.thevintagenews.com/2016/09/15/nuremberg-trials-several-nazi-leaders-achieved-genius-level-scores-iq-test-highest-result-143/

1 Hjalmar Schacht 143
2 Arthur Seyss-Inquart 141
3 Hermann Goering 138
4 Karl Doenitz 138
5 Franz von Papen 134
6 Eric Raeder 134
7 Dr. Hans Frank 130
8 Hans Fritsche 130
9 Baldur von Schirach 130
10 Joachim von Ribbentrop 129

Still, if that's the club you are joining - the uniforms were pretty damn stylish.

@Justcallmecaptainobvious
I don't remember anyone giving them any sympathy either and they were only children.
If you are arguing about the use of the death penalty entirely and not just this individual case then stop sympathising with the murderers previous history as it doesn't matter. If you feel that way then no murderer should receive the death penalty regardless of their crime or past. I suggest you join some sort of campaign to stop it if you feel so strongly not just for this one woman surely? I'm 100% sure you won't though.

@IEat

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

Yes. But what is particularly sickening in this case is that only a few days ago her death sentence was halted in order for checks to be made about her mental capacity - not much point executing someone who doesn’t understand what is happening after all - the belief was that if an investigation could be delayed until after Biden was inaugurated the likelihood was that she would have her sentence commuted to life imprisonment. But in less than 48 hours this was overturned. It is pretty clear whose hand was pushing for her execution, a last, spiteful action by a man whose misogyny and need for revenge and personal power has been apparent for a long time.

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.

I hope the judges who signed the order are able to square their consciences with this final despotic action from a truly unhinged and vicious. No good expecting Trump to feel guilt, he doesn’t have the emotional capacity. He would rather be remembered , and take pride in the title, as the first president for nearly 70 years to approve the death warrant on a woman.

@YouBoughtMeAWall

What would be the point in keeping her alive for decades more in a maximum security facility?

To punish her. She’s not being punished now is she? How does ending her punishment help the victim? What is the point in keeping any murdered alive?

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. Especially as usually 'for life' is never really for life.

(I'm not saying this is right, just answering your point about how it helps the victim)

@MessAllOver I believe there’s been changes to the way minors are dealt with in the british system due to the bulger trial?

@steppemum

When I heard about her life yesterday I wanted to cry.

Her sister was removed by social services, so SS knew that the family was a disaster and yet no-one ever removed Lisa, or even investigated.

I feel that she was a completely damaged person, failed by every single person who knew her.

Her crime was awful, breathtakingly shocking.
She should have been in a secure psychiatric unit, not executed.
there was talk of a reprieve yesterday, I am sorry it didn't work.

But then I am against the death penalty altogether.

THIS ^

The death penalty is barbaric an has no place in a civilised society. It's just state-sanctioned murder. And we have no right to ask another person to kill - be it pulling a lever, injecting, gassing, whatever - on behalf of the state. It has to be brutalising.

I'm sure that if someone committed a crime as horrible as this against someone I loved, i would want them dead - but that's emotion - it doesn't mean that it's right.

I have nothing but pity for the victim and their family, and for Lisa who was in a hell in her own head.

Most female violent criminals, and many males, have suffered severe abuse. Others have been "taught" - which is itself a form of mental abuse even if they aren't aware of it.

Her death doesn't bring that poor girl back.

@Tatianabis
Well how do you know she was having one?
She created a new identity, deliberately targeted, purchased rope ect she knew exactly what she was doing. It's called premeditated. If she was having a psychotic episode why didn't she kill the baby too I wonder? Very odd.

@DGRossetti

No-one has said you can't be clever and a psychopath. If a clever person is drawn to power, and they have no ethics to get in the way, they could certainly rise to the top of a genocidal fascist regime.

However, Nazi supporters on the ground tended to be not the brightest. The ideology attracted very much thuggish elements of the population.

Meanwhile, in the 21st century, research has indicated lower intelligent adults can be drawn to socially conservative views and prejudice. (Eg Professor Hodson's study at Brock University, Canada).

Guessing you wouldn't have executed Hitler either 🤔

I wouldn't have executed Hitler.

Fortunately, he took the matter out of anyone's hands.

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.

A man who, ironically, has been responsible for many thousands of deaths.

@Worldwide2 please can you explain where I’ve sympathised with her history? Her background is utterly abhorrent, but even if she’d had a lovely upbringing I would be 100% against the death penalty. Also, yes I have worked on anti death penalty campaigns in the past (not right now, we can’t do all things at all times). But I don’t believe that gives me any more right than anyone else to discuss it on here.