Coalition of More Than 1,000 Advocates Urge Federal Government to Halt December 8 Execution of Lisa Montgomery

A diverse coali­tion of more than 1,000 advo­cates, includ­ing cur­rent and for­mer pros­e­cu­tors, activists fight­ing sex traf­fick­ing and domes­tic vio­lence, and men­tal health orga­ni­za­tions, have joined forces to ask President Donald Trump to halt the upcom­ing exe­cu­tion of the only woman on fed­er­al death row, Lisa Montgomery (pic­tured).

In a series of let­ters deliv­ered to admin­is­tra­tion offi­cials and released to the pub­lic by Montgomery’s lawyers on November 11, 2020, the advo­cates argue that Montgomery’s seri­ous men­tal ill­ness, brought on by a hor­rif­ic his­to­ry of sex­u­al vio­lence, phys­i­cal abuse, and being sex­u­al­ly traf­ficked as a child, and exac­er­bat­ed by abu­sive con­di­tions of death-row con­fine­ment, make it inap­pro­pri­ate for the gov­ern­ment to exe­cute her. The let­ters were sub­mit­ted by 43 cur­rent and for­mer pros­e­cu­tors, 800 orga­ni­za­tions and indi­vid­u­als involved in efforts to com­bat vio­lence against women, 100 orga­ni­za­tions and indi­vid­u­als involved in anti-human traf­fick­ing efforts, 40 child advo­cates, 80 for­mer­ly incar­cer­at­ed women, and joint­ly by the National Alliance on Mental Illness, Mental Health America, and the Treatment Advocacy Center. 

On October 16, 2020, the Department of Justice announced that it had sched­uled Montgomery’s exe­cu­tion for December 8. She is the ninth of ten fed­er­al death-row pris­on­ers sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed dur­ing the fed­er­al government’s unprece­dent­ed 2020 exe­cu­tion spree. Three exe­cu­tions are sched­uled for November and December, which, if car­ried out, would be the first fed­er­al exe­cu­tions dur­ing a lame duck pres­i­den­cy in at least a century. 

A Relentless History of Childhood Physical and Sexual Abuse

A November 10, 2020 pro­file in the Huffington Post chron­i­cles in detail the relent­less abuse Montgomery endured through­out her child­hood and ado­les­cence. Montgomery was born to an alco­holic father and an abu­sive moth­er who drank heav­i­ly while preg­nant with her. As a young child, she expe­ri­enced phys­i­cal abuse, vio­lent fights, and the rape of her half-sis­ter while she slept in the same bed. Her moth­er was phys­i­cal­ly vio­lent and emo­tion­al­ly abu­sive through­out Montgomery’s child­hood. Family mem­bers recount that Montgomery’s first sen­tence as a tod­dler was ​“don’t spank me.” When Montgomery was in kinder­garten, her moth­er remar­ried, and her home life dete­ri­o­rat­ed even more. Montgomery’s step­fa­ther, Jack Kleiner, is described as ​“an errat­ic, vio­lent man who beat the kids and his wife reg­u­lar­ly.” He report­ed­ly would strip his daugh­ters and Montgomery naked before beating them. 

Kleiner, the Huffington Post reports, began molest­ing and rap­ing Montgomery in her pre­teen years and would allow his friends to rape Montgomery as pay­ment for house­hold repairs. A cousin who is now a deputy sher­iff recounts Montgomery telling him at the time of being repeat­ed­ly oral­ly, vagi­nal­ly, and anal­ly raped. ​“She said it was over and over, one man right after the oth­er, and went on for hours. … They were also phys­i­cal­ly vio­lent. They would beat and slap her if she was ​‘doing it wrong.’ When they were done, they uri­nat­ed on her like she was trash.” 

When Montgomery was 15, her moth­er divorced Kleiner. Although she had walked in on Kleiner rap­ing Montgomery, her moth­er nev­er report­ed the rape to author­i­ties. After the divorce, her moth­er began sex­u­al­ly traf­fick­ing Montgomery her­self, invit­ing men to rape her daugh­ter in exchange for mon­ey. Montgomery was reg­u­lar­ly gang raped to ​“pay” for her keep.

Montgomery mar­ried her step­broth­er at 18 and began hav­ing chil­dren, giv­ing birth to four chil­dren in less than five years before being ster­il­ized against her will. Family mem­bers not­ed that her pre­car­i­ous men­tal health wors­ened after her ster­il­iza­tion. They report that Montgomery often seemed dis­con­nect­ed from the world around her, behav­ing errat­i­cal­ly, express­ing delu­sions, drink­ing heav­i­ly, hav­ing mul­ti­ple car acci­dents, and strug­gling to keep a job.

When she was 36, Montgomery killed a preg­nant woman and took the baby from her womb, act­ing as though the baby was hers. 

According to clin­i­cal psy­chol­o­gist Katherine Porterfield of the Bellevue/​New York University Program for Survivors of Torture, the reports about Montgomery’s behav­ior at the time ​“are con­sis­tent with the idea that she was a com­plete­ly impaired men­tal­ly ill non­func­tion­al per­son who was oper­at­ing with­in the symp­toms of her men­tal ill­ness.” At her death penal­ty tri­al, how­ev­er, Montgomery’s lawyers failed to draw a con­nec­tion between her child­hood trau­ma and the mur­der. As a result, pros­e­cu­tors were able to por­tray tes­ti­mo­ny about her child­hood as an ​“abuse excuse.” 

After review­ing records and con­duct­ing a men­tal health eval­u­a­tion of Montgomery, Porterfield con­clud­ed that Montgomery react­ed to the life­time of extreme abuse she had expe­ri­enced by dis­so­ci­at­ing from real­i­ty. By the time she reached adult­hood, Montgomery had ​“a dis­con­nect­ed sense of her emo­tions, a ten­u­ous hold on real­i­ty, a com­plete­ly warped view of human rela­tion­ships, and a split and dam­aged sense of her­self and of her body,” Porterfield said.

Broad Support for Halting Montgomery’s Execution

In recent days, a diverse coali­tion of sup­port­ers have writ­ten let­ters to join Montgomery’s request for exec­u­tive clemen­cy. Forty-one cur­rent and for­mer pros­e­cu­tors wrote a let­ter high­light­ing ​“Lisa’s expe­ri­ences as a vic­tim of hor­rif­ic sex­u­al vio­lence, phys­i­cal abuse, and being traf­ficked as a child.” They argued that tri­al pros­e­cu­tors’ den­i­gra­tion of this his­to­ry as an ​“abuse excuse” was inap­pro­pri­ate because evi­dence of this back­ground is ​“crit­i­cal­ly rel­e­vant to deter­min­ing the appro­pri­ate pun­ish­ment of a seri­ous crime.” In a sep­a­rate let­ter, two pros­e­cu­tors pro­vid­ed per­spec­tive from their expe­ri­ence pros­e­cut­ing women accused of mur­ders that were almost iden­ti­cal to Montgomery’s crime. They wrote, ​“We know from first-hand expe­ri­ence that these crimes are inevitably the prod­uct of seri­ous mental illness.”

Letters of sup­port for Montgomery were also pro­vid­ed by a group of 800 orga­ni­za­tions and indi­vid­u­als who work to end vio­lence against women, a group of 100 orga­ni­za­tions and indi­vid­u­als who fight against human traf­fick­ing, 40 child advo­cates, 80 for­mer­ly incar­cer­at­ed per­sons, and three of the nation’s lead­ing advo­ca­cy orga­ni­za­tions for peo­ple with seri­ous men­tal ill­ness and their fam­i­lies. The let­ter from the National Alliance on Mental Illness, Mental Health America, and the Treatment Advocacy Center focus­es on the impor­tance of under­stand­ing Montgomery’s crime in the con­text of her severe men­tal ill­ness and trau­mat­ic back­ground. They oppose her exe­cu­tion because “[m]ultiple experts have con­clud­ed that Mrs. Montgomery’s crime was the prod­uct of her men­tal ill­ness and brain injuries. Even today, her grip on real­i­ty is frag­ile, main­tained only with a com­plex reg­i­men of psy­chotrop­ic med­ica­tions that she nev­er received before being incarcerated.”