Death sentence for mentally ill Lisa Montgomery shows failure of justice system
Trump should grant clemency to the only woman on federal death row. She doesn’t deny that she committed violent acts. But execution only adds to the years of abuse and trauma that led to her crime.
Frank P. Cervone Opinion contributor
Far too many children in America are victimized each year, their bodies and spirits devastated by sexual violence and trafficking. Lisa Montgomery — a woman the federal government plans to execute on Jan. 12 — was such a child. On Tuesday, her attorneys released the clemency petition that detailed her abuse and asked President Donald Trump to commute her death sentence to life imprisonment.
Like many victims of extreme childhood trauma, Montgomery’s pain and suffering eventually resulted in her own violent act. About 75% of inmates on federal death row have experienced severe childhood trauma.
And while Montgomery cannot escape the consequences of the violence she committed, her execution would be one more abuse perpetrated against her, one more failure of the system to protect her, and it should not go forward.
I have devoted my career to advocating on behalf of the most vulnerable children — survivors of neglect, violence and abuse. Even with all my years of bearing witness to these children’s experiences, Montgomery’s story breaks my heart more than most.
Montgomery never knew love, safety or security. Her mother drank heavily during pregnancy, according to medical testimony, leaving Montgomery with permanent brain damage.
Montgomery’s stepfather began raping her when she was a child, and after he and her mother divorced, things only got worse. Montgomery’s mother trafficked her to adult men, allowing her to be repeatedly and violently raped.
The child tried to get help, even telling a cousin who was a police officer what was happening to her. According to documents presented during a court hearing, a social worker was also contacted and looked into the case. But the child was never removed from the home.
Montgomery’s mother not only allowed her children to be sexually victimized, she abused them physically, verbally and emotionally. She beat Montgomery and her sister and forced them into cold showers as punishment.
Children who have experienced trauma can show remarkable resilience, often going on to lead relatively ordinary lives despite the mental and physical scars they bear. However, in order for healing to occur, children need safety, mental and medical health care and opportunities to build skills to cope with their trauma history and the stresses of daily life. Organizations like my own exist to protect children from abuse and to help connect youth who have been abused to the supportive people and services they need to heal. I have seen the positive changes such advocacy can have on a child’s life.
Montgomery never received this kind of intervention, despite multiple attempts to ask for help. In fact, Montgomery’s older sister was removed from the home by social services, and though she struggled after escaping, she was able to achieve a functional adulthood.
But when children like Montgomery are left to suffer at the hands of their abusers, positive outcomes are rare. There was no good outcome for Montgomery. Years of sexual torture compounded her brain damage and genetic predisposition to mental illness to cause a dissociative disorder.
When no adult intervened, Montgomery’s mind broke with reality to protect her from what her body was going through. Her mental illness and brain damage eventually led her to commit a tragic crime. She strangled a pregnant woman, cut her open and kidnapped her baby to care for her as if she were her own.
The crime was devastating. But the very fact that Montgomery received a death sentence represents another systemic failure. Instead of recognizing her as a victim of childhood physical and sexual abuse who experienced delusional thinking and profound emotional pain, federal prosecutors called her life story an “abuse excuse” and told the jury it didn’t matter.
The jury also heard only a superficial smattering of the horrors Montgomery had endured. The result is that Montgomery is the only woman in this country facing federal execution. By urging Trump to commute Montgomery’s death sentence to life without possibility of release,
I do not mean to minimize her crime. She has taken full responsibility for the pain and loss she caused, and she offered to plead guilty and accept a life-without-parole sentence long ago.
Montgomery’s history, however, is no abuse excuse. It is critically relevant to the crime she committed and to the penalty she should receive. Both courts and clinicians across the nation increasingly recognize the profound and lifelong impact of trauma history on a person’s physical and mental health. We now know that we can’t ask someone what she did without also asking what happened to her.
We also know that when the perpetrator’s story includes the type of relentless physical, emotional and sexual abuse that Montgomery suffered, traumatized children are at heightened risk of growing up into adults who inflict violence on others.
Too often, sentencing juries are not told the full extent of these devastating formative experiences. But these men’s and women’s life stories must be a part of any clemency consideration and should be reason enough to stop an execution.
In other words, what happened to Montgomery is inextricable from what she did. Executing Montgomery would not achieve justice for anyone, and would needlessly punish a woman who has already experienced a lifetime of pain.
Trump can and should grant her clemency.
Frank P. Cervone is executive director of the Support Center for Child Advocates, a Philadelphia-based organization that serves child victims of abuse and neglect through the advocacy of trained volunteer attorneys and staff social workers.
Editor’s note: USA TODAY Opinion reached out to the family of the victim, Bobbie Jo Stinnett. Her relatives declined the opportunity to give their perspective on the case.
Source: Published January 5, 2021 in USA Today. Click HERE to access the article online.