Amber McLaughlin: the story of the first transsexual sentenced to death in the United States for her crimes

Amber McLaughlin will be the first transgender person to face the death penalty in United States of America amid dramatic pleas for clemency for his mental condition.

Amber was still convicted like Scott McLaughlin for the rape and murder of a woman, Beverly Guenther, in 2003.but his defense formally petitioned Parsons for leniency, claiming he suffered from brain damage and childhood trauma.

McLaughlin will be executed by lethal injectionaccording to CNN.

“The investigation has acknowledged McLaughlin’s sincere regret and so have every expert who has evaluated her in the years since the trial,” her attorneys said.

Amber McLaughlin: the first transsexual to be sentenced to death

McLaughlin was”heavily diagnosed with borderline intellectual disability and universally with brain damage and fetal alcohol syndrome“, argued the defense.

The Death Penalty Information Center – contrary to the death sentence – has shown that McLaughlin “She is the first transgender person to be given an execution date in the United States.”

Alsohe recalled that the jury did not unanimously approve the death penaltya necessary circumstance in the vast majority of states that execute prisoners.

“Missouri law considers a non-unanimous jury to be a deadlocked jury. Therefore, a rule was used that allows the judge to impose a sentence on his own,” the agency said.

He added that “the judge relied on aggravating circumstances thrown out by the jury to sentence McLaughlin to death.”

Amber McLaughin’s clemency pleas

Numerous political and civil society figures have called for McLaughlin’s execution to be reversed, claiming that she had been abandoned by her mother, repeatedly attacked by her adoptive father and protagonist of “multiple suicide attempts”.

McLaughlin did not initiate any legal proceedings to change his name or begin a physical transitfor which he remains in the Potosi Penitentiary, near San Luis, an institution for men only, according to the Europa Press news agency.

On October 19, the US Supreme Court upheld the execution of a prisoner despite repeated requests for clemency as he suffered from a mental illness.

Republican Missouri governor Mike Parson refused to commute McLaughlin’s sentence.

“McLaughlin’s conviction and sentence are based on multiple and careful examinations of Missouri law. McLaughlin stalked, raped and killed Ms. Guenther. McLaughlin is a violent criminal,” Parson said in a statement.

And I add “Mrs. Guenther’s family and loved ones deserve peace. State of Missouri to carry out the McLaughlin sentence according to the order of the Tribunal and will do justice”.

History of the death penalty in Missouri

In the United States, 18 people were executed in 2022, two of them in the state of Missouri.

The only woman executed in Missouri was Bonnie Heady, who was sentenced to death on December 18, 1953 for kidnapping and killing a 6-year-old boy.. Heady was executed in the gas chamber, side by side with the other kidnapper and murderer, Carl Austin Hall.

Kevin Johnson, 37, was sentenced to death on Nov. 29 for the ambush killing of a police officer. While Carmen Deck was executed in May for killing James and Zelma Long during a robbery.

Another inmate, Leonard Taylor, he will die on February 7 from killing his girlfriend and three small children.