As the court found, Mrs. Montgomery ‘made a strong showing’ of her current incompetence to be executed. Stunningly misguided priorities. In letters delivered today, a broad coalition of current and former prosecutors, anti-sex trafficking and anti-domestic violence groups, child advocates and mental health groups is urging President Trump to stop the execution of Lisa Montgomery, a woman with severe mental illness who suffered relentless physical, emotional, and sexual abuse including being trafficked by her own mother. Their OmoType fonts are designed so people with dyslexia can decode letters and words more easily. Abused, Then Condemned: For Women on Death Row, A History of Gendered Violence is the Norm,”, Violence Must First Be Understood to Prevent It, “My Baby Sister Did a Terrible Thing. Her violence and cruelty toward Lisa and the other children knew no bounds. Jack built Lisa a small room onto the side of the trailer, making it easy for him to rape her out of earshot of others. He had a daughter from a previous relationship, Diane, who was four years older than Montgomery. Rose Minutaglio, “My Baby Sister Did a Terrible Thing. Lisa Montgomery, at the age when her stepfather began raping her. Frédéric Autran, Lisa Montgomery, l’exécution de la honte, Libération, January 13, 2021. “We know from our work with abused children that being unable to escape a cycle of abuse exacts a terrible mental toll,” these child advocates write. Lisa’s mother also allowed men to rape Lisa in exchange for money, including gang rapes. In the midst of all this litigation, Lisa’s request for clemency remained before President Trump. 4-5.) troubled relationship to her own body. What is happening to them is so terrifying that their mind goes to another place to survive. In 2004, Lisa Montgomery, from Kansas, killed expectant mother Bobbie Jo Stinnett in Missouri before cutting the baby from Stinnett's womb and passing off the newborn as her own. “But her history provides us with an important explanation that would influence any sentencing recommendation we made as prosecutors.”, The prosecutors stress that Lisa’s history “is not an ‘abuse excuse’ as the jury was told at her trial,” and that evidence of a defendant’s childhood trauma is “critically relevant to determining the appropriate punishment for a serious crime.”. The defense failed to present critical evidence of Lisa’s sexual exploitation and torture, and failed to explain to the jury why it mattered. Lisa Montgomery, 51, learned this week that she will be executed on December 8 for the 2004 murder of Bobbie Jo Stinnett and the kidnapping of Ms Stinnett’s baby from the womb. Kansas City Star Editorial Board, “Unconscionable’: Is Kansan Lisa Montgomery the kind of person who should be executed?,” Kansas City Star, December 30, 2020. As the execution process began, a woman standing over Montgomery's shoulder leaned over, gently removed her face mask and asked if she had any last words. According to female lawyers working in the same office with Owen, he “[chafed] at Ms. Clarke’s leadership role on the team” and was not “particularly good at working with women,” especially “[women] on equal footing.” The chief investigator on Lisa’s case, who was also male, repeatedly made clear that he was “not going to take any orders from any damn woman.”. Lisa committed her crime while in the grip of a psychotic episode and even today, she must take a complex cocktail of medications to stave off recurrent psychosis. Lisa Montgomery Endured Years Of Abuse Before Committing Murder. On January 13, 2021, the federal government executed Lisa Montgomery, a woman with severe mental illness who suffered relentless physical, emotional, and sexual abuse including being trafficked by her own mother. Lisa was also much more than the horrors inflicted upon her, the sexual violence and abuse she endured at the hands of those who were supposed to love, nurture, and protect her. Stanley Garnett and Harry Zimmerman, who prosecuted women for crimes similar to Mrs. Montgomery’s, wrote to President Trump: We know from first-hand experience that these crimes are inevitably the product of serious mental illness. It is difficult to grasp the extremity of the horrors Lisa suffered from her earliest childhood, including being raped by her stepfather, handed off to his friends for their use, sold to groups of adult men by her own mother and repeatedly gang raped, and relentlessly beaten and neglected. Meghan Roos, “Lisa Montgomery’s Sister Blames Death Sentence in Part on Being Poor,” Newsweek, December 24, 2020. Mrs. Montgomery’s mental health has been deteriorating since the government first set her execution date. Lisa recounts how she learned not to cry when the duct tape was on her mouth, because her nose would become stuffed up and she couldn’t breathe. Natalie Schreyer, “‘A Prisoner of War Story:’ The Life and Captivity of the Only Woman on Federal Death Row,” Ms Magazine, January 11, 2021. A powerful new song and video about Lisa’s story are available here. "No," Montgomery responded in a quiet voice. She divorced and married again. Montgomery's legal team argued she suffered "sexual torture", including gang rapes, as a child, permanently scarring her emotionally and exacerbating mental health issues that ran in her family. They point to the “many missed opportunities to intervene and stop Lisa’s suffering,” which might well have prevented the crime from ever happening. He now says, “I live with regret for not speaking up about what happened to Lisa. (Clemency Petition at pp. UPDATE: We are devastated and outraged. Lisa Montgomery was charged in 2007 in Missouri after she kidnapped and strangled an eight months pregnant woman by the name Bobbie Jo Stinnett. The current administration knows this. This was a terrible crime, but Lisa took full responsibility and offered to plead guilty and accept life imprisonment with no possibility of release. Debra Cassens Weiss, “ABA asks Trump for delays in 3 executions, including case in which the lawyers have COVID-19,” ABA Journal, November 13, 2020. Her stepfather invited his friends to rape Lisa vaginally, orally, and anally, and they “urinated on her like she was trash” afterward. Read Lisa Montgomery’s Motion for Stay of Execution here: https://tinyurl.com/yyym5kul, “The lower court decision was reasoned, applied the applicable, controlling law, and, after calling balls and strikes, the district court judge reasonably granted a stay of execution and an evidentiary hearing on Mrs. Montgomery’s claims under Ford v. Wainwright, 477 U.S. 399 (1986). She is now a grandmother. Separately, the US Court of Appeals also voted to stay the execution, delaying any new execution date past Donald Trump's White House departure. (Clemency Petition at p. She told Lisa she had to submit to these men to “earn her keep.” (Clemency Petition at p. 7.). She honored us with her truth and trusted us to share it in a way that not only told her story, but that could help other women. Bills have been introduced to end the federal death penalty forever and we will soon have a president who will sign them into law. Everyone who participated in the execution of Lisa Montgomery should feel shame. STATEMENT FROM ATTORNEY KELLEY HENRY ON THE EXECUTION OF LISA MONTGOMERY. She literally does not perceive her body accurately in some cases and has trouble remembering, for instance, states of her body with accuracy.”. (Petition at pp. Jeff Mordock, “Judge orders DOJ to explain why COVID-19 outbreak among lawyers shouldn’t delay woman’s execution,” Washington Times, November 13, 2020. He threatened to expose her, and said he would use the imagined pregnancy in court to obtain custody of her children. We should recognize Lisa Montgomery’s execution for what it was: the vicious, unlawful, and unnecessary exercise of authoritarian power. Lisa was executed in the early hours of January 13th. Melinda Henneberger, “How Could Bloodthirsty Execution of Kansan Lisa Montgomery Ever Amount to Justice?,” Kansas City Star, October 21, 2020. As courts agreed Lisa’s case presented important legal issues warranting serious consideration – including whether she was competent to execute – the government hammered onward with appeals. Attorneys, Letter to President Trump from Members of the Commission on the Status of Women. “Ms. Lisa Montgomery will be executed for cutting a baby from an expectant mother's womb. He raped her regularly for years after that, coming into her room at night. Without informing Ms. Clarke, Owen and his boss asked the male federal judge to remove her from the case. As a victim of repeated rape, incest, and child sex trafficking, the loss of her underwear was especially traumatic. Contact: Laura.Burstein@squirepb.com, (202) 669-3411, @LauraBurstein1 . She suffered from several mental health conditions which the State failed to care for,” the experts said. The government appealed that decision in a race to execute Mrs. Montgomery on January 12 and a three-judge panel reversed the district court. The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia by Cornell Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic, seeks a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction to “preserve Mrs. Montgomery’s rights to access a clemency proceeding under conditions that allow her untrammeled access to counsel and expert assistance” (p.3 from Memo in Support of Motion for Temporary Restraining Order and PI, which is pasted at bottom). You alone write the ending to this story – does it end with more pain? Under such circumstances, her execution would violate the Eighth Amendment.” (Petition at p. 8, citing Madison v. Alabama (2019), Panetti v. Quarterman (2007), and Ford v. Wainwright (1985. Montgomery was born with brain damage as a result of her mother… Lisa Montgomery is the only woman on federal death row. Lisa’s mother was less forthcoming about her role in terrorizing Lisa. She beat her children, including Lisa. In a series of tweets, she condemned the "Trump administration's craven, immoral rush to execute as many people as possible". The United States has been a member of the OAS since 1951 and accepts the jurisdiction of the Inter-American Commission in death penalty cases. Leading International Human Rights Entities and Experts Appeal to U.S. Government to Stay the Execution of Lisa Montgomery, Citing her Mental Illness and History of Sexual Violence. 7. “In the grip of a psychotic break, Lisa killed a pregnant woman and took the baby. (Petition at pp. https://t.co/YDhrrRg6H9 . The petition requests a hearing to determine her competence before any execution takes place. ), Dr. George Woods, an expert in neuropsychiatry, stated that the kind of brain damage that Mrs. Montgomery has affects her ability to have accurate perceptions of reality. In addition to brain damage, she has temporal lobe epilepsy, bipolar disorder, and complex posttraumatic stress disorder. She beat her children, including Lisa. According to one of his children, “[w]hen Jack came into a room, the atmosphere changed.” He punched, kicked, and choked his children, including Lisa. She now has multiple mental disorders, including bipolar disorder and temporal lobe epilepsy. The Trump administration’s craven, immoral rush to execute as many people as possible has backfired and reignited the anti-death penalty movement. Such concerns are, in fact, being borne out, and a new lawsuit argues that the conditions under which the Bureau of Prisons is housing Lisa in advance of her execution are aggravating her mental illness. During Judy’s divorce from Jack, Lisa testified about his rapes. You alone have the power to join the growing chorus to end the stigmatization of mental illness. She was also prostituting Lisa to her male friends. She sought mental escape through drinking alcohol. The baby she stole had survived and was returned to the father, Zeb Stinnett. Yet, they put the lives of every single person who must participate in these “events” as well as every one of those persons’ friends, families, neighbors, co-workers, and who knows how many other people. She had trouble sleeping and getting out of bed, sobbed profusely, and could not eat. A coalition of United Nations (UN) human rights experts also issued an unusual joint appeal calling for clemency in Mrs. Montgomery’s case. Lisa did not see Ms. Clarke again until after Lisa was sent to federal death row. She was raised in an abusive home where she was allegedly rapedby her stepfather and his friends, and physically beaten, from the age of 11. The threat of losing her children combined with years of trauma and severe mental illness pushed Lisa past the brink. ), Dr. Katherine Porterfield, a clinical psychologist and a leading expert on torture, stated: “My opinion, which is based on information obtained from Mrs. Montgomery’s attorneys about their daily communication with her, as well as my previous evaluation of Mrs. Montgomery over four days and eighteen hours of face to face interviewing in 2016, and extensive review of Mrs. Montgomery’s biopsychosocial history through records and witness interviews, is that as a result of her severe mental illness Mrs. Montgomery is currently unable to rationally understand the basis for her execution. Perversely, he captured his torture of Lisa –and her cries of pain–on video. Lisa’s mother described one of the rapes when she testified in her divorce proceedings, “He was in her. Mrs. Montgomery was a victim of severe and repeated sexual violence starting in her childhood, and is now so mentally ill that she requires multiple medications to prevent full-blown psychosis. Below is a statement from Sandra Babcock, one of Mrs. Montgomery’s attorneys: “Lisa Montgomery is a person with severe mental illness, and numerous experts have concluded that her crime was the product of a psychotic episode. Letter from two former prosecutors who prosecuted similar cases involving attacks on pregnant women can be accessed here. No one can credibly dispute Mrs. Montgomery’s longstanding debilitating mental disease – diagnosed and treated for the first time by the Bureau of Prisons’ own doctors. Or does it end with hope, mercy, and understanding? Harwell began experiencing COVID-19 symptoms on November 5, and Henry lost her sense of smell the next day. She was suicidal. As the lawsuit describes, the Department of Justice announced Mrs. Montgomery’s execution date on October 16 with no notice to her attorneys. Letter from three of the nation’s leading advocacy organizations for people with serious mental illness and their families can be accessed here. OmoType is a typeface designed and customized for people with dyslexia and other reading difficulties. And so now you are faced with the awesome responsibility of deciding whether Lisa Montgomery lives or dies. Tamar Sarai Davis, “Abused, Then Condemned: For Women on Death Row, A History of Gendered Violence is the Norm,” Prism, December 16, 2020. Victoria's mother, Bobbie Jo, was eight months' pregnant when she was attacked and slain in Skidmore, Missouri. To ensure Lisa received competent legal representation , experts recommended the appointment of Judy Clarke, one of the most talented defense attorneys in the country, with particular expertise working with clients who are victims of abuse and trauma. More than a dozen women have committed similar crimes around the country, and none, besides Lisa, are condemned to die. Melissa Jeltsen, “Trump Urged To Commute Death Sentence Of Mentally Ill Sex Trafficking Victim,” HuffPost, November 11, 2020. He built a separate rape room, where he beat her head against the concrete floor and invited his friends to rape Lisa anally, orally, and vaginally. When her mother married Jack Kleiner, Lisa’s life became a living hell. “Lisa’s Song” is here: https://youtu.be/okWfnh3pDcA, OVER ONE THOUSAND SUPPORTERS CALL ON PRESIDENT TRUMP TO COMMUTE DEATH SENTENCE OF LISA MONTGOMERY, MENTALLY ILL VICTIM OF TRAFFICKING AND HORRIFIC ABUSE SCHEDULED FOR DEC. 8 FED. Montgomery was the first of the final three federal inmates scheduled to die before next week's inauguration of president-elect Joe Biden, who is expected to discontinue federal executions. The local sheriff described it as the most gruesome crime he had ever seen. Her crime reflects the desperation, shame, and hopelessness that many victims of extreme child abuse feel.”, Three of the nation’s leading advocacy organizations for people with serious mental illness and their families also call for clemency based on Lisa’s mental illness and neurological disorders. Lisa Montgomery committed a crime that she can never take back, and her actions had tragic consequences for Ms. Stinnett and her family. If you are a member of the media and have an inquiry, please contact Laura Burstein at Laura.Burstein@Squirepb.com. She began to drink the wine stored in the room as a means to cope. Yet the federal government insisted on seeking the death penalty, and prosecutors brushed off what little her lawyers told the jury about her history as an “abuse excuse. 718 (2019).” (See Petition at p. We therefore urge you to commute the death sentence of Lisa Montgomery, a mentally ill and brutally traumatized woman[.] Montgomery’s lawyers cannot represent her because they are seriously ill, through no fault of their own. Esther Wang, “Why Is the Trump Administration Still Planning to Execute Lisa Montgomery?,” Jezebel, December 21, 2020. I wonder if I had if all of this could have been prevented.”, Lisa has had brain damage since she was an infant. Montgomery drove 170 miles (274km) from her home in Kansas to the house of heavily pregnant dog breeder Bobbie Jo Stinnett, 23, in Skidmore, Missouri, in December 2004 under the guise of picking up a puppy. ‘A Prisoner of War Story:’ The Life and Captivity of the Only Woman on Federal Death Row, Saving Lisa Montgomery’s Life Requires More Than Stopping Her Execution, “Death sentence for mentally ill Lisa Montgomery shows failure of justice system,”, ‘A lifetime of torture’: the story of the woman Trump is rushing to execute. Mrs. Montgomery suffers from several mental disorders that frequently cause her to lose touch with reality. But the President did nothing. I could tell she couldn’t always wash her clothes. (Washington, D.C.) Lisa Montgomery, who was born with brain damage, suffered a lifetime of sexual torture, and struggles with severe mental illness and keeping in touch with reality, has submitted a petition for executive clemency to President Trump. Montgomery will suffer irreparable injury. Prosecutors ridiculed the evidence of Lisa’s rapes, referring to it dismissively as the “abuse excuse.” They faulted Lisa’s mothering skills, telling the jury that she didn’t go to her children’s events, and that “[s]he didn’t cook, and [s]he didn’t clean.” They told the jury that she lived in a “filthy home.” After five hours of deliberation, the jury recommended that she be sentenced to death. ), The nation’s three leading mental health organizations — the National Alliance of Mental Illness, Mental Health America, and Treatment Advocacy Center — wrote to urge President Trump to commute Mrs. Montgomery’s sentence: “We believe that Ms. Montgomery, who acted in grip of a psychotic episode, should not be subject to the death penalty due to her brain damage and severe mental illnesses, and a sentence of life imprisonment without possibility of release is an appropriate sentence for her.” (Clemency Petition at p.