Lisa Marie Montgomery (1968-2021)

Lisa Montgomery was once a little girl, just like my daughters. But Lisa's stepfather did not love her. He repeatedly raped and tortured her along with his friends, beating her so severely as to cause brain damage - and the State of Kansas did nothing. She should have gone to foster care, and ideally given a new family through adoption.

Instead, she grew into a woman so twisted and delusional that she strangled a pregnant woman, then cut the baby out of her and claimed the child was her own. The mother, Bobbie Jo Stinnett, died; her child lived.

During Trump's final days, while pardoning the security guards who murdered Iraqi children, he rushed to execute several people on federal death row. Lisa Montgomery was one of them. But what did we accomplish by killing her? Stinnett is still dead, Stinnett's daughter is (presumably) still alive but without a mother, and we are not any safer since Montgomery was already behind bars. 

Having failed to protect Lisa, and thus failed to protect Bobbie Jo, we killed Lisa. We didn't kill her because we were afraid of her, or angry at her. We gave her the death penalty because we were ashamed of her.