First sad. Unless the Missouri governor grants her clemency plea, Amber McLaughlin will become the first transgender person in history to be executed on Tuesday. The 49-year-old is said to have received lethal injection for a murder committed before her transformation. She will also be the first person to be executed in the United States in 2023.
In 2003, the American had killed her ex-companion in a suburb of Saint-Louis, the big city of Missouri. Amber McLaughlin had not supported their breakup and has been harassing her ever since, to the point that her former girlfriend had secured protective measures.
But on the day of the crime, Amber McLaughlin awaited her outside work with a kitchen knife and stabbed and raped her before dumping her body near the Mississippi River, according to local media.
Amber McLaughlin was found guilty of murdering a woman before her transformation
At the end of her trial in 2006, the jury found her guilty of murder but could not agree on her sentence. A judge then decided to retain the death penalty.
The states of Missouri and Indiana are the only ones that authorize their judges to issue death sentences if the popular jury does not reach a unanimous vote.
Because of this peculiarity, Amber McLaughlin’s attorneys asked Republican Gov. Mike Parson to commute her sentence to life in prison. The task promises to be difficult: since his election, Mike Parson has not accepted any pleas for clemency.
“The death penalty considered here does not reflect the conscience of the general public, but that of a single judge,” they write in their petition for clemency, which also refers to the difficult childhood and mental illnesses of their client. Her request was supported by several personalities.
According to local press, she began her transformation in recent years but remains on Missouri’s male death row.
According to the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC), to which reference is made, no openly transgender person has ever been executed in the United States.