ST. LOUIS — A Missouri prisoner sentenced to die Jan. 3 for stabbing an ex-girlfriend to death 19 years ago in Earth City is asking Gov. Mike Parson for mercy.
The death warrant is in the name of Scott A. McLaughlin, who is being held in protective custody at the men’s prison in Potosi. McLaughlin is a transgender woman, Amber McLaughlin, and has been making the transition the past few years in prison.
McLaughlin’s lawyers say Parson should commute the death sentence to life in prison without parole because, in part, the ºüÀêÊÓƵ County trial jury never got to hear essential mental health testimony.
Parson has refused to grant clemency to the five men executed since he became governor in June 2018. One execution under Parson was carried out each year in 2019, 2020 and 2021. Two prisoners were executed in 2022.
Parson spokeswoman Kelli Jones said Wednesday that the governor’s legal team conducts an “extensive review†of all clemency applications.
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“The governor then considers the matter and makes a decision when he is prepared to do so. 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.
The Death Penalty Information Center, a Washington-based nonprofit that tracks death penalty numbers, is aware of at least nine transgender women on death rows across the United States, said Robert Dunham, executive director of the center. Dunham said McLaughlin would be the first transgender person to be executed.
McLaughlin, now 49, was convicted of killing Beverly Guenther, 45, of Moscow Mills. McLaughlin terrorized and stalked ex-girlfriend Guenther, then stabbed her to death Nov. 20, 2003, on a parking lot in Earth City. McLaughlin dumped the body in ºüÀêÊÓƵ near the Mississippi River.
The jury deadlocked in the penalty phase, so a judge sentenced McLaughlin to death.
A 27-page application for executive clemency was submitted Monday to Parson’s office by federal public defender Larry Komp. It details McLaughlin’s life in the foster system, an abusive childhood, brain damage and fetal alcohol syndrome, bouts of depression as a child and suicide attempts as an adult.
McLaughlin’s psychological problems began in a childhood marred by neglect and abuse; McLaughlin’s adoptive father was a policeman who used a taser and nightstick on the child, according to the clemency application.
In 2006 in ºüÀêÊÓƵ County Circuit Court, McLaughlin’s trial lawyers made a strategic decision not to have a psychiatrist testify. They had discovered during the penalty phase that one of their expert witnesses had falsified data in a lab report 17 years earlier. The defense team chose not to use him to discuss McLaughlin’s mental state during the murder. The jury never got to hear certain mental health evidence.
When the jury deadlocked on penalty, Judge Steven Goldman decided that he had the authority to impose a death sentence under this circumstance. Goldman’s move, which appeared to set a precedent here, was appealed on grounds of McLaughlin’s Sixth Amendment right to a trial by jury.
U.S. District Judge Catherine Perry vacated the death sentence in 2016. Perry ruled, in part, that a flawed jury form meant a judge could not have known whether the jury thought the aggravating factors in favor of the death penalty outweighed mitigating circumstances, and that a jury, not a judge, had to weigh those factors. But five years later, a three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Court of Appeals disagreed with Perry’s decision and effectively reinstated McLaughlin’s death sentence.
“The death sentence now being considered does not come from the conscience of the community — but from a single judge,†the clemency application said.
"An act of executive clemency therefore will not encroach on the reverence of jury verdicts and, in fact, will more accurately reflect the jury’s wishes regarding punishment since it did not vote for death," the clemency application said.
Missouri and Indiana are the only states where a trial judge can impose a death sentence if a jury can't agree on punishment.
McLaughlin in a brief phone interview Monday with the Post-Dispatch said, “People should know I’m mentally ill.†McLaughlin called the pending execution “a sad thing.â€
“I don’t agree with it,†McLaughlin added. “I’m trying to stay calm.â€
McLaughlin was hesitant to say much more to a reporter and declined to talk about the crime.
In court filings from the Missouri Supreme Court to the U.S. Supreme Court, McLaughlin is referred to as Scott, never Amber. The clemency application is different. It refers to Amber throughout.
“Amber McLaughlin never had a chance,†the clemency application said. “She was failed by the institutions, individuals and interventions that should have protected her, and her abusers obstructed the care she so desperately needed.â€
Kurt Erickson of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.