The first openly transgender woman set to be executed is pleading with Missouri Gov. Mike Parson for mercy because “she” claims to be “mentally ill.”
Amber McLaughlin, now 49, was convicted of raping and murdering an ex-girlfriend in St. Louis County in 2003. At that time, “Amber” was Scott McLaughlin. The inmate “transitioned” in prison.
McLaughlin says it’s a “sad thing” to be executed because of mental illness.
“I don’t agree with it,” the inmate said. “People should know I’m mentally ill.”
The anti-death penalty advocates want “her” life spared because McLaughlin is so brave.
“It’s wrong when anyone’s executed regardless, but I hope that this is a first that doesn’t occur,” federal public defender Larry Komp said. “Amber has shown great courage in embracing who she is as a transgender woman in spite of the potential for people reacting with hate, so I admire her display of courage.”
Parson spokeswoman Kelli Jones said the Governor’s Office is reviewing her request for mercy.
“These are not decisions that the Governor takes lightly,” Jones said in an email.
“It is extremely unusual for a woman to commit a capital offense, such as a brutal murder, and even more unusual for a woman to, as was the case with McLaughlin, rape and murder a woman,” Corrections Department spokeswoman Karen Pojmann said.
Yes, it’s unusual for a woman to rape another woman. But McLaughlin is a man and had no apparent problem raping and murdering his victim. This is what happens when gender identity trumps logic, reason, and common sense to the extent that a state official can’t even come to admit that a perpetrator is actually a man.
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It sounds like McLaughlin had a rough childhood.
In their 27-page clemency petition, McLaughlin’s lawyers cited her traumatic childhood and mental health issues, caused in part by brain damage and fetal alcohol syndrome, which the jury never heard during trial.
A foster parent rubbed feces in her face when she was a toddler and her adoptive father, who was a cop, tased and beat her with a nightstick, according to the letter to Parson. She tried to kill herself multiple times, both as a child and as an adult.
“Amber McLaughlin never had a chance,” the clemency petition read. “She was failed by the institutions, individuals and interventions that should have protected her, and her abusers obstructed the care she so desperately needed.”
Granted all of that, other people have had equally rough childhoods and don’t end up being murdering rapists. Also, who’s to say that McLaughlin didn’t transition to being a woman just to curry sympathy with the court and the governor? His odds of living probably went up considerably.
I object to the death penalty because people with money rarely, if ever, are sentenced to death. Fewer rich people are actually executed. It’s unequally applied — not based on black or white, but on the green. And that’s not fair.
But McLaughlin was tried and convicted of heinous crimes and sentenced legally to death. The law needs to be enforced regardless of McLaughlin’s brutal childhood or gender confusion.
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