Trans woman Amber McLaughlin executed He became the first person from this group to openly face the death penalty in the United States and the country this Tuesday for a murder in 2003. McLaughlin, who began her gender transition in prison nearly three years ago, was given a lethal injection in Missouri Tuesday night after Missouri Governor Mike Parson, a Republican, refused a pardon. The trans woman, formerly named Scott McLaughlin, was pronounced dead at 18:51 local time (23:51 GMT), according to the State Department of Prisons.
McLaughlin, 49, found guilty of raping and murdering his ex-girlfriend Beverly Guenther and her execution in Louis County will also be the first of the year in the United States.
According to the Death Penalty Information Center, a group that opposes the death penalty, there are no other cases of trans men or women executed in the United States.
“McLaughlin followed, raped and killed Guenther,” Parson added. “McLaughlin is a violent criminal. Guenther’s family and loved ones deserve peace.” McLaughlin’s lawyers filed a petition for parson on December 12, begging Parson to commute the sentence to life imprisonment, emphasizing that the jury who found him guilty could not reach a verdict on his sentence.
Missouri and Indiana are the only two states where the law allows the head of the jury to impose the death penalty, but Governor Parson said this morning that McLaughlin’s conviction and sentence remain valid. Michelle Smith, associate director of Missourians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, told The Kansas City Star that this variant makes Missouri an “extreme state” that “smells of injustice”.
In petitions for clemency, McLaughlin’s lawyers claimed that he was abused as a child and suffered from an intellectual disability that was never mentioned during the trial.