Trans death row inmate set to be executed cites struggles with brain damage in clemency application

Trans woman Amber McLaughlin, who is set to be executed in Missouri for murdering a woman in 2003, has asked the state’s Republican governor Mike Parson to spare her. 

According to her clemency application McLaughlin is set to be executed by lethal injection on January 3 next year for the murder of Beverly Guenther. 

In McLaughlin’s petition her attorneys list struggles she has faced stemming from her childhood and request that she is spared for expressing remorse. 

“The lead investigating officer contemporaneously noted McLaughlin’s genuine remorse, as has every expert to evaluate McLaughlin in the years since the trial.”

The attorneys noted that McLaughlin has “consistently diagnosed with borderline intellectual disability,” and “universally diagnosed with brain damage as well as fetal alcohol syndrome”. 

According to the petition, in her childhood McLaughlin was “abandoned” by her mum and placed into the foster care system. In one place she reportedly had “feces thrust into her face”.

The application goes on to highlight abuse and trauma McLaughlin suffered in another foster home and it details that she was tased by her adoptive father. Due to her difficult upbringing she battled depression that led to “multiple suicide attempts,” the petition says.

Details of McLaughlin’s traumatic past weren’t presented to the jury, the petition argues.

The death penalty was imposed by a trial judge, after the jury was ultimately deadlocked. 

‘All that could go wrong did go wrong for her’

McLaughlin’s federal public defender, Larry Komp, told CNN her execution “would highlight all the flaws of the justice system and would be a great injustice on a number of levels”.

“It would continue the systemic failures that existed throughout Amber’s life where no interventions occurred to stop and intercede to protect her as a child and teen. 

“All that could go wrong did go wrong for her. There is so much hate out there, so I admire Amber and her courage as she embraces who she is.”

Anti-execution organisation, the Death Penalty Information Center, told CNN that McLaughlin is the first trans prisoner to be given an execution date in the US. 

Kelli Jones, communications director for the governor has confirmed, the governor’s legal team will meet with McLaughlin’s legal team to discuss her petition on Tuesday (20 December). 

“These are not decisions that the Governor takes lightly, and the process is underway as it relates to the execution scheduled for January,” Jones said.

McLaughlin is housed at Potosi Correctional Center in Missouri, which houses male inmates.