Attorneys submitted an application for executive clemency to Missouri Governor Mike Parson on Dec. 12, asking him to commute the sentence of Amber McLaughlin, 49, to life in prison. McLaughlin is set to become the first openly transgender woman executed in the U.S. unless the governor grants clemency.
McLaughlin was convicted of killing her former girlfriend in 2003 and was sentenced to death by a St. Louis county judge after the jury deadlocked on punishment. The clemency request focuses on several issues, including McLaughlin’s traumatic childhood and mental health issues, which the jury never heard in her trial.
According to the clemency petition, McLaughlin was a victim of abuse as a toddler, with a foster parent rubbing feces in her face, and her adoptive father using a stun gun on her. The petition also notes that McLaughlin was diagnosed with gender dysphoria in 2018 and has been receiving hormone therapy while in prison.
An online petition urging Parson to stop the execution has garnered nearly 4,900 of its requested 6,400 signatures as of Monday morning. The petition states that McLaughlin’s sentence should be commuted to life in prison, as she was not given the death penalty in a trial by jury.
The governor’s office has not yet responded to the clemency request, and McLaughlin is still scheduled to die by injection Tuesday. It remains to be seen whether Parson will grant clemency and commute her sentence to life in prison.
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