TW The Case of Lisa Montgomery - US death penalty

[MondayYogurt]

I've just come across this horrific story of the only women facing the death penalty in US right now.

Her life has been marked by her being female, a girl, a woman. And her treatment in the system has been equally abusive.

www.deathpenaltyworldwide.org/project/savelisa/

The date of execution is 12 Jan 2021.

God every word of that report is utterly heartbreaking. Those poor women...

Jesus fucking Christ.

I have absolutely no idea what kind of secure care would be appropriate now for this poor woman. I can't see how she could be anything other than irretrievably broken after being so appallingly failed time and time again. But I'm at a lost to understand how any court anywhere could consider the death penalty to be appropriate, it is beyond believe.

Time and again, you don't have to dig very deep to find that women who commit serious crimes have been victims their entire lives.

That's one of the most upsetting things I have ever read. She was failed by so many people in so many ways. So many lives destroyed! And much of the damage could have been avoided if she had been helped as a child and not abandoned to her fate. Wtf were they thinking when they removed her older sister, and left the others behind?

I don’t support the death penalty in any circumstances, not any, but even someone who believes in it can surely see how inappropriate it is here?

I used to donate to Amnesty due to their anti death penalty work. Gonna go look for an alternative org now

It's so horrific I almost didn't want to post, in the hope that it would leave my mind. But hiding these stories, these truths, just serves the purposes of the people who abuse.

It's a truth worth hearing and sharing.

She isn't the only woman on death row. She's on federal death row, presumably due to the kidnapping of the baby. Her background is horrific but her crime was horrific too. Haven't heard any tears here for her victim, who was strangled into unconsciousness when 8 months pregnant, only to awake as her baby was being carved out of her body (and then the final strangulation). I'm totally against the death penalty, but I can understand how a jury in the south would vote that way.

@BettyDuKeiraBellisMyShero

I don’t support the death penalty in any circumstances, not any, but even someone who believes in it can surely see how inappropriate it is here?

I used to donate to Amnesty due to their anti death penalty work. Gonna go look for an alternative org now

Betty, you could try reprieve:

reprieve.org/uk/

Without being outing, I know personally that there is a solidly gender critical viewpoint at a senior level there.

That is a harrowing read, and I can’t believe how comprehensively Lisa has been failed. The crime was dreadful beyond comprehension, but putting her to death won’t make that any better. Just awful.

I should say “feminist” rather than “gender critical” there. My issues with Amnesty start with their revolting attitude towards prostitution. Maddening that I can’t just say “feminist” without having to articulate that.

Just harrowing. And then for the police officer cousin to do nothing when she talked to him! He went back to his life, dealing every day with victims of crime, and what, gave her no more thought?!

What an awful life. And yes to the pp who mentioned the victim - of course it was a terrible crime. But she has fully taken on board that she committed an atrocity- it's not like she's trying to get out of it. But if someone commits a crime whilst in the throes of psychosis tjat needs to be addressed correctly. I feel for everyone in that case. And I hope that police officer holds on to that shame for the rest of his life

I wonder if any of her many attackers have been convicted?

Haven't heard any tears here for her victim

It's possible to have compassion for more than one person at a time.

And without being required to declare everyone involved for whom you have compassion before being permitted to comment on the aspect currently being considered.

I can be horrified by what she did and horrified by what was done to her.

Murdering her too doesn't fix anything, it just adds to the horror.

I think it's pretty disgusting to try and use a murdered woman as some kind of trump card to justify the murder of another in her name.

I’m bumping this thread after reading an article in the New York Times following the execution of Lisa Montgomery 3 days ago.

It was written before Lisa Montgomery was executed. Overlooking the irritating denotation of gender instead of sex the below point is made well:-

“Of course, boys and men are also victims of abuse and sexual assault. But courts can’t treat experiences like Ms. Montgomery’s as genderless. Her rapes, her teenage marriage, the multiple pregnancies with an abusive partner — Ms. Montgomery endured a lifetime of abuse because she was a woman. She was trafficked and raped because she was a girl. And the severe cognitive impairment she suffers today is a direct result of those crimes.

“Were it not for her being a woman,” Ms. Babcock told me, “she would not be on death row, because she wouldn’t be subjected to the kind of torture that she was.” Her case, she said, “is all about gender.”

The answers for the tragic murder of Bobbie Jo Stinnett can be found awful life of Lisa Montgomery, one shaped by relentless abuse. If the state or society had cared a fraction more and intervened to help her, and there were countless opportunities to do so, I doubt we would have heard of either women.

I am not excusing her crime but there are 2 victims here of a society that makes all the right noises in claiming to advocate for the rights of women and girls and yet one that continually fails them.

Link to the article;-
www.nytimes.com/2020/12/18/opinion/sunday/lisa-montgomery-execution.html

Appalling that she was executed. Appalling that Trump- who is clearly quite mad- has been allowed to go on this vicarious killing spree.

This is very interesting- not directly about LM and her case but about the DP in general and why it needs to end in the USA (and everywhere, but specifically in the US in the context of Trump and his Lame Duck Executions) www.theguardian.com/news/audio/2021/jan/15/trump-the-death-penalty-and-its-relationship-with-americas-racist-history