Shortly after 1:00 AM on January 13, 2021, in a sterile, green-tiled room in the US Federal Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, a lethal dose of pentobarbital began to flow down a long, clear IV tube into the left arm of Lisa Marie Montgomery. At 1:31 AM, she was pronounced dead - becoming the first woman executed by the US federal government since 1953.
The crime that landed Lisa Montgomery in the execution chamber was indisputably horrible. On December 16th, 2004, Montgomery strangled an expecting mother - Bobbie Jo Stinnett - to death before cutting Stinnett's unborn baby out of her mother's womb (the baby fortunately survived). The horrific crime made international headlines and earned Montgomery a death sentence four years later.
However, Lisa Montgomery's trial and execution was not without controversy. Anti-death-penalty advocates campaigned relentlessly on her behalf to halt the execution, citing her alleged mental health problems and torturous childhood. They implored the government to find it in their hearts to grant mercy to a woman who had shown no mercy; to show compassion to a murderer who completely lacked it; and to forgive her for the most unforgivable of crimes.
Now, it should come as no surprise to anyone that I am an avid supporter of the death penalty. And, as a supporter of the death penalty, I have often been accused by death penalty opponents of being ghoulish, heartless, bloodthirsty, vengeful, and lacking sympathy for the condemned. But this is expressly far from the truth.
My support for the death penalty is not based off of revenge or being bloodthirsty. I support the death penalty because it enforces a basic system of consequences. Those who violate the rights of others forfeit their own rights. Just as those who steal from others are fined, and those who kidnap others are imprisoned, those who kill others forfeit their own right to life. This is a basic system of consequences and we cannot claim to uphold the value of life if we don't punish the taking of life with the ultimate punishment. To do any less cheapens the value of human life and belittles the crime of murder.
But let's address another argument from death penalty opponents - that I somehow am incapable of having sympathy for the condemned. This, too, is absolutely untrue - and in Lisa Montgomery's case it is particularly untrue.
Lisa Montgomery's childhood was a living hell. There is no denying that. Lisa Montgomery was born to an alcoholic mother who abused her throughout her entire life - even killing the family dog in front of her as punishment for her misbehavior. Lisa's stepfather sexually abused her from when she was only 11 years old, and frequently "shared" her with his friends.
As a child and young teenager, Lisa Montgomery was required to perform sexual favors for her stepfather's friends in exchange for being allowed to live at the family trailer home. She turned to alcoholism and suffered through abusive relationship after abusive relationship. She was frequently beaten, abused, and neglected by the very people she relied upon to protect her. Lisa's life was a life of absolute misery and living hell - and it is a life that nobody - absolutely nobody - deserves.
So, do I have sympathy for Lisa Montgomery? Am I appalled by what she endured as a child? Absolutely I am. Any human being would be.
But absolutely none of what Lisa Montgomery went through - the rape, torture, abuse, neglect, and molestation - excuses her for the murder of Bobbie Jo Stinnett. Not even a little bit. Not by a single iota. My sympathy for Lisa Montgomery ends at the very moment she strangled Bobbie Jo Stinnett to death and gruesomely kidnapped her unborn child. As much as other people failed Lisa in her life, at that point the only person who failed Lisa was Lisa herself.
At that point, Lisa Montgomery was no longer a victim; she was a victimizer. She was a victimizer who murdered a woman who had absolutely nothing to do with her horrific childhood. She condemned Bobbie Jo's mother to a lifetime of trauma and grief after she discovered the mutilated body of her daughter lying disembowled on the floor. She deprived Bobbie Jo's daughter of the chance of growing up with her mother. Lisa Montgomery - at that moment - defined herself as a murderer and not a victim.
I cannot imagine what Lisa Montgomery went through as a child. I never had to endure what she did. But one thing I do know is that countless other victims of abuse - the same kind of abuse that Lisa Montgomery endured - never went on to commit murder and fetal abduction. These abuse victims went on to lead happy and successful lives, and worked to make the world a better place rather than victimize others.
In the end, Lisa Montgomery had every opportunity to not commit murder. For all that she had lost in life, Lisa Montgomery retained the option to not continue the cycle of pain and abuse that had defined her existence - and, rather than seize that opportunity, she squandered it. And for that, she had to pay.
Sympathy for those who commit heinous crimes should never excuse them from their punishment. Not even a little bit. If we want justice to be fair, blind, and equal, we must implement it as such. Consequences for one's actions must be fully enforced, or the very social fabric of society is irreparably tarnished. This is a social code that I have always and will always believe, regardless of how much sympathy I may feel for a convicted murderer.
A few years ago, I wrote an article about a murderer named Steven Roy Harper - who committed the poisoning murders of his ex-girlfriend's husband and nephew. Like Lisa Montgomery, Steven Harper endured a traumatic and horrific childhood, albeit under different circumstances.
At the age of 9, Harper was seriously injured in an accidental fire - a fire that left him permanently disfigured. But the scars Harper endured were far more than skin deep. The once outgoing and playful boy now became a withdrawn, insular, and isolated child with extreme insecurities and a complete lack of a social life. Throughout his adolescence, Harper - enduring mockery for his disfigurement and a consuming insecurity that prevented him from having any sort of social life - withdrew further and further away from others.
In the midst of his isolation, his trauma, and his suffering, Harper brooded a festering resentment towards society and those he felt had cheated him out of a normal life - particularly girls and young couples. Though Harper eventually did find a romantic partner in his old high school classmate, Sandy Betten, the relationship fell apart and Harper - devastated at the prospect of being yet again abandoned and ostracized - turned his grief and his insecurities into anger and rage. The resentment he had nurtured boiled over into violent, unbridled, cold revenge.
Using a cancer-causing chemical, Harper poisoned Sandy Betten's entire family, killing her husband and nephew and leaving three others with permanent liver damage. And for that crime, Harper was convicted of murder and sentenced to death, though the sentence was never carried out as Harper committed suicide before he could be executed.
The Steven Roy Harper case is the saddest case I have ever studied. Not only was it a case of senseless death and destruction, but Steven Roy Harper - perhaps more than any other criminal I've studied - reminded me of my younger self. When I was between the ages of 12 and 16, I was much like Harper - insecure, depressed, withdrawn, rejected, and harboring a festering resentment towards society and young couples. It was a life of misery, hatred, and self-loathing - a life where even living itself felt like a monumental and agonizing task.
Much like with Steven Harper, my life in middle school and the beginning of high school was defined by repressed anger, rage, feelings of frustration and rejection, and a festering resentment towards the world I felt had wronged me. It took a long, long time to leave the self-destructive lifestyle I had immersed myself into, and even today I still struggle with maintaining a social life.
When I was writing about Steven Roy Harper, I was actually moved to tears multiple times because of how much he reminded me of my old self. It was one of the most emotionally moving cases I have ever examined. Harper suffered so much throughout his early life through no fault of his own. He didn't deserve to be burned in that accident, nor did he deserve the social stigma, trauma, and ostracization that defined his adolescence.
But, at the same time, do I think that Harper's trauma in any way should have spared him from the death penalty? Absolutely not. Not by one iota. If I were the judge in Harper's case - as much as it probably would have pained me to do so - I would have sentenced Harper to death for the murders he committed. At some point, sympathy must end and consequences must begin. Absolutely nothing justifies the heinous murders of Duane Johnson and Chad Shelton at the hands of Steven Harper. Absolutely nothing lessens the consciousless depravity that defined Harper's crimes. And as much sympathy as I have for Steven Harper, the sentence he received for his crimes was the only just sentence he could have received.
And such as it was with Steven Harper, such it is with Lisa Montgomery. If we do not enforce the most basic system of consequences - and in doing so uphold the sanctity and value of innocent human life - then we as a society diminish ourselves and irreparably tarnish the very justice we claim to revere.
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