America’s first transgender death row inmate is set to be executed on Tuesday.
Amber McLaughlin, 49, will be the first person executed in the country in 2023 unless Missouri’s governor grants clemency.
Before she can transform she needs a lethal injection for a murder.
In 2003, the American killed his ex-companion in the suburbs of the big city of Saint-Louis, Missouri.
Amber McLaughlin was not supportive of their breakup and harassed her ex-girlfriend because she had protective measures.
But on the day of the crime, Amber McLaughlin was waiting for her outside job with a kitchen knife, and was stabbed, then raped, and then dumped her body near the Mississippi River, according to local media.
After his trial in 2006, jurors found him guilty of murder, but they failed to reach a conviction. A judge later upheld the death penalty.
In the absence of popular jury consensus, only Missouri and Indiana authorize their magistrates to impose the death penalty.
Based on this consistency, Amber McLaughlin’s attorneys asked Republican Governor Mike Parsons to commute her sentence to life in prison.
“The death penalty contemplated here does not reflect the conscience of society, but the conscience of a judge,” they wrote in their plea for mercy, which also evokes their client’s difficult childhood and mental disorders.
Their request received the support of many figures, including two representatives elected to the US Congress from Missouri, Cory Bush and Emanuel Cleaver.
In a letter to the governor, they recalled the abuses of their childhood in their adopted family. “Along with these horrific abuses, she silently struggled with gender identity issues…” they wrote.
According to local press, he began his transition in recent years, but remains Missouri’s man on death row.
The Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) notes that no openly transgender person has ever been executed in the United States, but the issue has gained attention in recent months after the Ohio Supreme Court upheld the death sentence for Victoria Train. and Tara Gist in Oregon, two transgender women transitioning.
Since his election, Governor Mike Parson has not granted any clemency requests submitted to him.
