Baby Be Mine (29 page)

I
n the last week of 2005, Lisa Montgomery's defense attorneys filed a motion in federal court on her behalf:

Capital cases are difficult no matter what
—
we recognize the need to move forward but despite our best efforts to date, we cannot provide competent representation under the current scheduling order. The necessary investigation, motion practice, discovery and defense scientific testing simply cannot be accomplished without additional time
.

To assist the Court and government counsel in appreciating the critical need for this continuance and to demonstrate that this request is not the result of procrastination by defense counsel, this motion will outline numerous stumbling blocks to an April 2006 trial date and the general areas in which extensive work remains to be accomplished
.

They argued that

capital cases are fundamentally different than any other criminal case not only in the severity of the potential penalty but in the nature of the evidence and the information which must be developed. Sensitive facts need to be disclosed to members of the defense team who are essential strangers to the defendant. This takes months. Then evaluation by relevant experts must follow. It is an incrementally slow process
.

Without adequate time to develop the relationship of trust required for effective representation in a capital case, counsel may never learn or be able to present the most crucial facts about the defendant, facts without which any possible understanding of her actions is impossible
.

The lawyers complained at length about the failure of the prosecution to provide all the required documents:

While the government has provided and continues to provide, substantial discovery in this case, to date neither of the provisions of the scheduling Order have been completely complied with by the government. There are several items such as documents, film, computer disks and a tape of a recorded conversation of the defendant on January 10, 2005, that have not been produced. Government DNA testing is ongoing. The government has not yet produced a “bit by bit” image of the hard drives of computers seized by the government during investigation of this case, including a computer seized from Mrs. Montgomery
.

The attorneys also insisted that they needed more time to conduct their own DNA tests.

What seemed to be their strongest argument for a delay of
trial was the prosecution's belated filing of the formal notice to seek the death penalty:

The scheduling order, in envisioning trial in April 2006, mandated that any notice of intent to seek the death penalty be filed by September 16, 2005. The government did not file that notice until two months later on November 16, 2005. Essentially, the government took 11 months to make the decision as to whether or not to seek the death penalty in this case and expects the defendant to be prepared to meet that notice in 5 months. This is simply not enough time
.

The defense, however, was not requesting an additional sixty days to prepare to compensate for the two-month delay caused by the prosecution—nor were they reverting to their previous request for an August 2006 date. They wanted more—much more. They requested a commencement of trial in February 2007.

The prosecution filed their response to the defense's delay request on January 10, 2006:

The United States opposes the request of the defendant to continue her trial to February 2007. The above case has been specially set for jury trial before this Court since February 2005. At that time, this Court advised counsel that the parties should prepare for trial to being on April 24, 2006. The United States stands ready to proceed on that date and further suggests there is more than adequate time remaining before trial for defense counsel to be prepared to meet their constitutional obligations to provide a sufficient defense for the defendant
.

They objected to the defense allegation that they were slow to provide discovery. To date, they asserted that they had given
2,282 pages of documentation to their counterparts—all but 145 pages of which were provided before the end of May.

The remaining few items of discovery were only recently requested by defense counsel and will be provided in the near future. It should be noted, however, that the items only recently requested by defense counsel on November 30 have been available to defense counsel for review since the spring of 2005 when government counsel invited defense counsel to review the evidence at the FBI at anytime
.

In the matter of the defense's need for additional time for DNA testing, the prosecutor's response was blunt:

Although it has been a year since the murder of Bobbie Jo Stinnett, defense counsel still have not requested to have independent testing performed by its own experts on any of the items seized in this investigation by law enforcement authorities. The United States suggests that because of the defendant's confession and the overwhelming weight of the evidence found in the trunk of the defendant's automobile, on her person, and in her home, it is obvious why defense counsel has not requested independent testing
.

They also placed the blame for the delay in providing computer evidence squarely on defense. They claimed Lisa's attorneys created obstacles to the transmission of that material by insisting on specific formats for that delivery. On the matter of the late filing of the
Notice to Seek the Death Penalty
, the prosecution argued that the defense had known for more than a year that the prospect was likely.

The state pointed yet another finger of blame at the defense. The legal team was given four possible days to meet with the Department of Justice's Capital Review Committee in Washington, D.C. “Ms. Hunt and Mr. Owen chose the
very last date available, that is September 26, 2005 to make their formal mitigation presentation,” despite knowing it would delay the death penalty filing.

The prosecution's position was clear:

Defendant is represented by three very skilled and experienced defense attorneys and. also has revealed in her motion that she lias employed three mitigation experts to assist in her pre-trial investigation and defense at trial. It is simply not credible to suggest that these skilled and experienced attorneys cannot be prepared to defend the charges against the defendant when they have already had over a year to begin preparation for the defense of this case and have nearly five additional months before this case is scheduled for trial
.

Finally, the family members of the murder victim, Bobbie Jo Stinnett have painfully awaited for the trial of this case and justice dictates . . . that this Court enter an order denying the defendant's motion
.

The judge did not give the defense a February 2007 date as they requested, but he did give them an additional six months. He scheduled a commencement date of October 23, 2006.

Now the decision was in the hands of the judge. The trial was expected to last four weeks from selection of the jury to the delivery of Lisa Montgomery's sentence.

A
s Tori Jo approached her first birthday and her second Christmas, she was an exuberant, chubby baby with the same big eyes her mother had when she was 1 year old. She crawled at high speed, but toddled awkwardly when she tried to walk.

She jabbered away nonstop most of the time she was awake. Just like her mother at that age, the hair on her head was still very sparse.

If only Bobbie Jo could see her now.

A
cts of evil befall people every single day. Most of us, though, feel snug and secure in our common sense and our ability to judge the people around us. When we learn of great evil committed by history's villains like Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot, we remain rooted in our personal sense of comfort and security. However, when it's the guy next door or the woman who cleans your teeth at the dental office or the man who repairs your car, the full impact of the ordinariness of evil hits us hard. After the fact, we can look back on the tracks of that person's life and see the warning signs with vivid clarity—but either no one saw them in real time or if they did, were not able or willing to divine their true meaning.

To keep ourselves covered in a mantle of security, we often blame those close to the perpetrator for being stupid or blind or in denial. Deep down, we should know, though, we are shirking from a truth too painful and frightening to face.
We, too, would have been just as oblivious if that ordinary, insidious evil had invaded our lives.

We have evolved in the past century from a society where involuntary commitment to mental institutions was an easy thing—and easily abused by those with a desire for revenge, a wish to hide away a family embarrassment or a need to ostracize someone who did not conform to society's norms. Now, we have a society where commitment or any form of forced therapy or medication is not possible unless the individual harms another or himself. If Judy had been able to commit her daughter Lisa in 2004 when she tried, Bobbie Jo Stinnett might still be alive today.

Is there a standard for commitment in between the two extremes? Is there some way we can act
before
the damage is done? Is there a way we can protect the most vulnerable members in our society—the children, the elderly, the pregnant women—without compromising the civil liberties of us all? There are no easy answers in the challenge of safety versus liberty—in the inevitability that freedom always implies risk.

Every single week in this country, two pregnant women are murdered, making homicide one of the leading causes of death during pregnancy, according to the Center for Disease Control. For a long time, statistics on traumatic deaths as a pregnancy-related phenomenon were overlooked. Researchers had viewed only medical complications and existing health problems as being pregnancy-related.

A fresh review of records, in a number of states, has opened the door to an alarming truth. Thirty-eight percent of pregnant women who died in Washington, D.C., were murdered. Twenty percent of pregnancy deaths in Maryland were caused by homicide. In North Carolina, thirteen percent of deaths were caused by intentional violence. In New York City and Chicago, the overwhelming majority of pregnant women who died of trauma were victims of homicide.

Many states have changed their death certificates. They added a place to indicate whether or not the woman was pregnant when she died. This alteration makes tracking
pregnancy-related murders and medical deaths an easier and more accurate task.

Most of the pregnant women whose cause of death is homicide are victims of domestic abuse at the hands of an intimate male partner. Typically, these acts of violence are motivated by a desire to control the woman and to eliminate an unwelcome burden or change in lifestyle for the men.

The need to control is the common thread running between the murders of pregnant women by a male partner and the same crime committed by a woman. The female killers, though, usually do not know their victim very well. A woman like this targets her victim at random in a narcissistic urge to satisfy her own needs without any regard for anyone who stands in her way.

“Female killers who murder pregnant women to steal their babies are not despairing over failed attempts at pregnancy or a recent miscarriage,” said criminal profiler Pat Brown. “In fact, they may have lied to family and friends about being pregnant or about losing a child through miscarriage or misfortune.

“They are psychopaths who love the power and attention associated with motherhood, but they don't love the child that true motherhood brings. This kind of woman will only desire a child in order to manipulate others and to bring attention to herself. Should that child stop serving her purposes, she may abandon the child or even kill it. The very act of slaughtering a pregnant woman for her baby negates any possibility that the perpetrator has the capacity to love and care for other human beings. This kind of woman is—to put it simply, without any fancy psychological label—nothing but a cold-blooded killer.”

Is there any way a pregnant woman can protect herself from this kind of random attack?
²
There are more than 4.2 million births in this country every year. In 2005, there were only four infant abductions—not one of them a successful abduction by cesarean section. Statistically, the risk factor for any woman is nonexistent. But statistics do not tell the whole story.

It is a crime that evokes extreme emotion. It devastates the extended family of the victim and carries with it a heavy negative impact on the whole community where the crime occurred.

Its impact casts an even broader net generating a high level of national attention that sends ripples of fear across the nation. This wide-flung focus puts intense pressure on investigators who, in all likelihood, have no experience with this type of predator.

Law enforcement is familiar with criminals whose motivation is money, sex or revenge. Those motives, however, have nothing to do with the crime of infant abduction. According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the abductor is “desperate to bask in the rapture of baby love—to feel adored and needed.” The typical perpetrator “truly believes she is about to give birth and she fully expects everyone to accept the reality she has attempted to create.”

“Infant abductors want what they want when they want it. They don't care about who they step on to get there,” said Cathy Nahirny at the Center. “If you are standing in their way, they will run you over without a blink of an eye and leave you to die on the pavement while they pursue their all-consuming goal.”

Investigators are used to suspects with long rap sheets. But in the case of these abductions, the kidnapper usually does not have a criminal record at all. If she does have any record, it is for minor, nonviolent crimes like shoplifting or check kiting.