Warning: This story contains graphic details of sexual abuse that may be disturbing to some viewers.
After long pressure by advocates and his legal team to demand clemency from the White House, President Donald Trump’s “murder spree” – which he and his former attorney general William Barr started last summer, when the Supreme Court allowed it for the United States government to resume federal executions after a break of nearly two decades – is set to claim its next life: Lisa Montgomery, the only female prisoner on federal death row.
For months, Montgomery’s allies tried to convince White House officials and Trump himself that Montgomery’s life was worth saving and that the president should add his name to the recent series of commutations and pardons he issued in the past few weeks of its first, and perhaps only, term. But since the beginning of this week, there has been little, if any, movement in this case at the White House attorney’s office and elsewhere in the west wing, said two people familiar with the matter. The two sources, and others informed about the situation who spoke to The Daily Beast, believed that Montgomery had an infinitely small chance of receiving mercy from President Trump. It was not even clear, the sources said, whether the president was aware of the case, and it certainly was not a priority on his list, given the consequences of the bloody U.S. Capitol riot that Trump helped unleash last week.
Montgomery’s defenders, her family and her lawyers say she is “deeply ill” and has suffered a life of horrific sexual abuse and physical trauma and torture by her mother and stepfather. They argue that it absolutely does not meet the competence limit for lethal injection, as was programmed at a federal facility in Terre Haute, Indiana, early Tuesday evening. On Monday night, a federal state judge issued a stay of execution, paving the way for a hearing on whether the 52-year-old inmate and convicted killer of pregnant victim Bobbie Jo Stinnett is mentally fit to be put to death. Trump’s Justice Department quickly appealed the decision, while Montgomery’s lawyers were preparing for a legal fight until Tuesday that they knew they could, even after the day ended, determine whether she would live or die this week.
As of Tuesday night, well past the scheduled time for Montgomery’s execution, court battles were still in progress after the execution was resumed on Tuesday, before a court ordered another suspension.
Supporters say that postponing the planned execution even for just over a week can save it; President-elect Joe Biden, who is due to take office on January 20, opposes the death penalty and is expected to stop the wave of executions as soon as he takes office.
For the Montgomery family, the wait and uncertainty were terrible.
“One thing I ask President Trump is to look at all of these people: society has disappointed Lisa … and so has Bobbie Jo. I’m begging him to, for the first time, be the spokesman for the society and not let Lisa down again. I am also begging for this as a survivor.“
– Diane Mattingly
“I’m not doing well. I am devastated that we are here now, ”said Montgomery’s sister, Diane Mattingly, as she fought tears during a telephone interview about 24 hours before the scheduled execution. “I’m close to falling apart on this.”
Mattingly continued, “Lisa was disappointed by so many people. She was disappointed by her mother and my stepmother – a mother who was supposed to be loving and caring, and she was hateful, mean, spiteful and cruel. And then she was disappointed by our father. He abandoned all the children he had … and [Lisa was let down by] the police officer she said was being raped by a gang. And he left her at her house and left … One thing I ask President Trump is to look at all these people: society has disappointed Lisa … and they have also disappointed Bobbie Jo. I’m begging him to, for the first time, be the spokesman for the society and not let Lisa down again. I am also begging for this as a survivor. “
Mattingly mentioned that in a clemency package presented to the White House about a week ago, she had written a letter to Trump, about Montgomery and their lives as brothers, and the rapes she and her sister suffered. The letter highlighted Montgomery “being in the room when I was being raped” and “everything that happened to her, and her stepfather, and him having his friends come to gang-rap her”, including in exchange for favors like “free plumbing . ”
It is unclear whether the letter reached Trump, or whether he saw it. Calls and messages to White House spokesmen were not returned.
“The death penalty must be reserved for the worst of the worst in our society. And I don’t see how anyone could look at this case and think that Lisa Montgomery is one of them, ”said Alan Dershowitz, who served in President Trump’s legal defense during last year’s impeachment trial. Dershowitz, who publicly supports granting Montgomery clemency, added: “This is a very sick woman with a history of mental illness and abuse. Nobody is talking about letting her out on the street, because the crime was really horrible, but the question is: does she qualify as one of the worst of the worst? And I would say absolutely not. “
On Tuesday afternoon, with concurrent appeals in multiple courts and eyes on the United States Supreme Court, individuals close to the outgoing president and the White House saw his chances as particularly bleak, at least as far as a Trump switching is concerned. The sources say that this president usually focuses on the perpetrator’s terrible crime and is usually unmoved by the reform of a murderer behind bars or the adverse circumstances of the criminal that led to the crime.
In 2008, Montgomery was sentenced to death for the brutal murder of Stinnett in 2004; after Montgomery strangled her, she cut off the surviving baby and tried to claim the baby was hers. Montgomery’s legal team insisted that her client suffered brain damage and that her mental illness was exacerbated by years of extreme trauma and the terrible recurring sexual violence she experienced.
But even if Trump were presented with these arguments, it is unlikely that he would be moved.
Trump privately boasted to people close to him about his revival of federal executions, and that his supposedly tough measure against crime during his administration will come into effect as part of his legacy that brought justice and comfort to the victims’ families.
As of Tuesday night, Montgomery’s defenders were still waiting for something, or someone, to keep her alive, at least in time for a Biden government to likely cancel the execution.
“Is this going to bring Bobbie Jo back? If I could make a magic wand and bring it back, I would, ”said Mattingly. “My heart breaks for that family, their friends, that community … My heart breaks for them. I’m sorry that this happened. Two people were disappointed because a society did not approach and [Lisa] Out there. As an eight-year-old girl, I know I was also afraid. But I even disappointed her. Because I left. And she didn’t. “
She added: “You can pick up two children who have gone through horrible situations. Our story shows what can happen to a child when you get him out of a horrible situation. Was it easy for me to overcome some of these things? It was not. But I had that good foundation on which I built. I have a good life. I have a wonderful relationship and good mental health. And then you take a child that was never taken out and just kept going … and it broke. “