Content warning: family abuse, sexual trauma/assault, mental illness, and
domestic abuse

Dear MoveOn member,

Without action from President Donald Trump, my sister, Lisa
Montgomery, will be executed on January 12, 2021.

[ [link removed] ]Sign the petition to save her life and demand Trump provides a stay of
execution.

We have only a matter of weeks to save Lisa's life. Lisa Montgomery—a
mentally ill woman who was the victim of gang rapes, child sex
trafficking, and domestic violence—was sentenced to death by a jury that
never learned the full extent of the sexual violence and physical abuse
Lisa endured.^1 As a result of her trauma, Lisa is now so unstable that
she must take a complex cocktail of medications to prevent full-blown
psychosis.

The story of Lisa’s life is worse than a nightmare. She was born with
permanent brain damage caused by her mother’s drinking during pregnancy. A
child of extreme poverty, she was also repeatedly raped by her stepfather
in the private room he built for her. Lisa was routinely beaten and
terrorized by her mother. Lisa’s mother trafficked her to men who were
allowed to rape Lisa in exchange for utilities and other services.
Although this abuse was suspected or known by teachers, a police officer,
and a judge, nobody intervened to protect Lisa.^2 

[ [link removed] ]When I was a child, the Department of Social Services removed me from
our home. But they left Lisa behind to be tortured by her mother and
stepfather. Sign this petition to save her life.

Sign this petition demanding that Donald Trump and the Department of
Justice grant a stay of execution for Lisa Montgomery. 

[3]Sign the petition

Lisa’s nightmare continued when Lisa married her stepbrother at the urging
of her mother at the age of 18. He continued the cycle of abuse, raping
and beating her. Not surprisingly, this lifetime of torture exacerbated
Lisa’s genetic predisposition to mental illness, and it caused her to
develop a dissociative disorder and complex post-traumatic stress
disorder. She often cannot tell what is real and what is not. She suffers
from flashbacks where she relives her rapes. 

Before her arrest, Lisa never received treatment for her mental illness,
and her symptoms worsened over time. In 2004, in the grip of a psychotic
episode, Lisa killed a pregnant woman and took her baby.^3,4 Lisa can
never undo her crime, but she took responsibility for it and offered to
plead guilty and spend her life in prison. The prosecutor rejected this
offer and sought the death penalty.

The lifetime of rape and sexual torture that Lisa endured is not an "abuse
excuse," as the prosecutor argued at her trial. Her history of abuse helps
to explain the depth of her disabilities. Yet the jury never had the
chance to consider how her history of devastating trauma has impaired her
daily functioning. Courts have rejected Lisa’s claims for relief, and her
case now rests in the hands of the President.

I am asking President Trump to consider the evidence the jury never heard
and to spare her life. Spending the rest of her life in prison is more
than adequate punishment for this crime, given Lisa’s traumatic history
and mental illness.

[ [link removed] ]Will you please help me save my sister’s life? Click here to add your
name to this petition, and then pass it along to your friends.

Thanks,

—Diane Mattingly, Lisa Montgomery's sister

Sources:

1. "Lisa Montgomery's execution delayed by attorneys' COVID-19 cases,
rescheduled for Jan. 12," USA Today, November 23, 2020
[link removed]

2. "The Case of Lisa Montgomery," Cornell Law School, accessed December 1,
2020
[link removed]

4. Ibid.

5. "My Baby Sister Lisa Did a Terrible Thing. We Shouldn't Kill Her For
It.," Elle, November 23, 2020
[link removed]

 

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