Amber McLaughlin Executed by Judge’s One-Sided Decision

Prior to her transition while incarcerated, Amber McLaughlin was convicted of the rape and murder of her former girlfriend, Beverly Guenther, committed in 2003. McLaughlin spent several years in court and was sentenced in 2006. The jury–who was not made aware of her mental health problems–could not agree to a sentence of life in prison or the death penalty. In most states, this would lead to a default sentencing to life in prison, but Missouri is one of the few states that does not require the jury to be unanimous when enforcing the death penalty. Because of this, Judge Steven Goldman was able to impose the death penalty.

While Al Wedepohl, Beverly Guenther’s brother, is “bothered” by news media’s focus on McLaughlin’s identity as a transgender woman and believes it was a ploy to try and escape the death penalty, her lawyers argued for clemency simply based on her mental heal issues, which include borderline intellectual disability, brain damage, and Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, and her apparent remorse for the crime. Cori Bush and Emanuel Cleaver, Democratic members of Congress representing Missouri, did, however, cite McLaughlin’s identity in a letter calling for her sentence to be commuted. “Her execution would simply destroy yet another community while using the concepts of fairness and justice as a cynical pretext,” they say, claiming that the judge making a unilateral decision to impose the death penalty was unjust.

This is the rallying cry of most people lobbying on behalf of Amber McLaughlin–that Judge Steven Goldman was wrong for his sentencing, and that the death penalty is unjust to begin with. While her identity has made headlines as being a first–”A first that should never have happened,” says Lamba Legal–it is not the people fighting for her that tried to use her identity as a weapon. Despite protests, Missouri Governor Mike Parson issued a statement that McLaughlin’s execution would go through, using her deadname on the statement, as if to insult her one last time.

Amber McLaughlin was executed by lethal injection on Tuesday, January 3, 2022. She was declared dead at 6:51 p.m.