Luis José Monge (June 21, 1918 – June 2, 1967) was a convicted mass murderer who was executed in the
gas chamber
A gas chamber is an apparatus for killing humans or animals with gas, consisting of a sealed chamber into which a poisonous or asphyxiant gas is introduced. Poisonous agents used include hydrogen cyanide and carbon monoxide.
History
Donatie ...
at
Colorado State Penitentiary in 1967. Monge was the last inmate to be executed before an unofficial
moratorium on execution that lasted for more than four years while most death penalty cases were on appeal, culminating in the U.S. Supreme Court decision in ''
Furman v. Georgia'' in 1972, invalidating all existing death penalty statutes as written.
Murders
Monge, a
Denver
Denver ( ) is a List of municipalities in Colorado#Consolidated city and county, consolidated city and county, the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Colorado, most populous city of the U.S. state of ...
, Colorado, insurance salesman, was a native of
Puerto Rico
; abbreviated PR), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, is a Government of Puerto Rico, self-governing Caribbean Geography of Puerto Rico, archipelago and island organized as an Territories of the United States, unincorporated territo ...
who grew up in New York. He was convicted and sentenced to death for murdering his wife, Leonarda, and three of their ten children after she discovered he was sexually abusing their 13-year-old daughter, Diann Kissell. The murders were committed on June 29, 1963.
Monge's murder victims were Leonarda, Alan (aged 6), Vincent (aged 4), and Teresa (11 months old). Immediately after the four murders, Monge called the police and admitted his guilt.
The alleged motive for the murders was "to prevent exposure of sex crimes committed by the defendant with his own children."
He beat his wife to death with a steel bar, stabbed Teresa, choked Vincent, and bludgeoned Alan with the steel bar.
He had no prior
felony
A felony is traditionally considered a crime of high seriousness, whereas a misdemeanor is regarded as less serious. The term "felony" originated from English common law (from the French medieval word "''félonie''") to describe an offense that r ...
convictions; in 1961, however, he abandoned his family for two months and served a short jail sentence in Louisiana for
vagrancy
Vagrancy is the condition of wandering homelessness without regular employment or income. Vagrants usually live in poverty and support themselves by travelling while engaging in begging, waste picker, scavenging, or petty theft. In Western ...
.
Execution
After Monge had pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, psychiatrists evaluated him and found him to be sane. He then insisted on pleading guilty to first-degree murder. A jury that was convened for the penalty phase of the trial recommended a death sentence, and Monge's conviction and sentence were affirmed on appeal. In January 1966, Governor John Arthur Love suspended all executions in Colorado, pending a referendum on capital punishment by voters. On November 8, 1966, the voters decided to retain the death penalty by a three-to-one margin. In March 1967, Monge attracted national attention when he asked a Denver court to allow him to be hanged at
high noon
''High Noon'' is a 1952 American Western (genre), Western film produced by Stanley Kramer from a screenplay by Carl Foreman, directed by Fred Zinnemann, and starring Gary Cooper. The plot, which occurs in Real time (media), real time, centers ...
on the front steps of the Denver City and County Building. This request was denied.
The following month, Monge fired his attorneys and directed that no attempts should be made to save his life. He gave up all of his appeals and asked to be executed. Nonetheless, his surviving children appealed for
clemency
A pardon is a government decision to allow a person to be relieved of some or all of the legal consequences resulting from a criminal conviction. A pardon may be granted before or after conviction for the crime, depending on the laws of the j ...
. Doctors again evaluated Monge's mental status and found him mentally competent for execution. A week before his death, Monge shared a
final meal with his surviving seven children. On the eve of the execution, some seventy members of the Colorado Council to Abolish Capital Punishment gathered on the steps of the state capitol building in Denver in a rally to protest the execution. On June 2, 1967, Monge was executed at the age of 48 in the state's gas chamber. Upon his death, and according to his wishes, one of Monge's
cornea
The cornea is the transparency (optics), transparent front part of the eyeball which covers the Iris (anatomy), iris, pupil, and Anterior chamber of eyeball, anterior chamber. Along with the anterior chamber and Lens (anatomy), lens, the cornea ...
s was transplanted to a teenaged reformatory inmate.
Monge was buried in Greenwood Pioneer Cemetery in
Cañon City, Colorado
Cañon City ( ) is a List of municipalities in Colorado#Home rule municipality, home rule city that is the county seat and the List of municipalities in Colorado, most populous municipality of Fremont County, Colorado, United States. The city p ...
in the
pauper's section set aside for deceased inmates of the state penitentiary. His grave lies a few feet from that of John Bizup Jr., a convicted murderer executed in 1964. The metal marker indicating Monge's grave has been marred with bullet holes. The Colorado gas chamber, retired after Monge's execution, is now an exhibit at the Museum of Colorado Prisons in
Cañon City.
Moratorium
Opponents of capital punishment, in an attempt to abolish the death penalty, waged a national litigation campaign that ultimately found its way to the
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all Federal tribunals in the United States, U.S. federal court cases, and over Stat ...
. The Court agreed to review a series of cases challenging that the death penalty was
unconstitutional
In constitutional law, constitutionality is said to be the condition of acting in accordance with an applicable constitution; "Webster On Line" the status of a law, a procedure, or an act's accordance with the laws or set forth in the applic ...
. While the Supreme Court reviewed these cases, lower courts in all states
stayed all pending executions, thereby creating a ''de facto''
moratorium on death sentences throughout the nation. The period of this "unofficial" moratorium on capital punishment began on June 2, 1967, with the execution of Luis Monge in Colorado, and continued through the 1972 Supreme Court decision in ''
Furman v. Georgia'', which invalidated death penalty statutes in every retentionist state and led to a nearly ten-year moratorium on the death penalty.
The moratorium would end nearly ten years later on January 17, 1977, with the execution of
Gary Gilmore in
Utah
Utah is a landlocked state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is one of the Four Corners states, sharing a border with Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico. It also borders Wyoming to the northea ...
.
Execution in context
Luis Jose Monge's was the last execution both in Colorado and in the United States prior to the 1972 Supreme Court decision in ''
Furman v. Georgia''. It would be almost ten years before any state would carry out another execution; the moratorium ended with the 1976 Supreme Court decision in ''
Gregg v. Georgia
''Gregg v. Georgia'', ''Proffitt v. Florida'', ''Jurek v. Texas'', ''Woodson v. North Carolina'', and ''Roberts v. Louisiana'', 428 U.S. 153 (1976), is a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court. It reaffirmed the Court's acceptance of the ...
'', in which the Supreme Court upheld several state's death penalty statutes, and when the state of Utah executed
Gary Gilmore on January 17, 1977.
Monge's execution was therefore the last to take place before what historians consider to be the start of the "modern era" of the death penalty, which began with the ''Gregg'' ruling and Gilmore's execution.
The state of Colorado itself took 30 years before it would do so in the execution of
Gary Lee Davis, on October 13, 1997. Monge's was one of only two executions to occur in the United States in 1967.
His was also the last execution by
gas chamber
A gas chamber is an apparatus for killing humans or animals with gas, consisting of a sealed chamber into which a poisonous or asphyxiant gas is introduced. Poisonous agents used include hydrogen cyanide and carbon monoxide.
History
Donatie ...
in Colorado.
See also
*
Capital punishment in Colorado
Capital punishment was abolished in Colorado in 2020. It was legal from 1974 until 2020 prior to it being abolished in all future cases.
It was reinstated in 1974 by popular vote, with 61% in favor of the measure that was referred to the voters ...
*
Capital punishment in the United States
In the United States, capital punishment (also known as the death penalty) is a legal penalty in 27 states (of which two, Oregon and Wyoming, do not currently have any inmates sentenced to death), throughout the country at the federal leve ...
* ''
Furman v. Georgia''
*
Gas chamber
A gas chamber is an apparatus for killing humans or animals with gas, consisting of a sealed chamber into which a poisonous or asphyxiant gas is introduced. Poisonous agents used include hydrogen cyanide and carbon monoxide.
History
Donatie ...
* ''
Gregg v. Georgia
''Gregg v. Georgia'', ''Proffitt v. Florida'', ''Jurek v. Texas'', ''Woodson v. North Carolina'', and ''Roberts v. Louisiana'', 428 U.S. 153 (1976), is a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court. It reaffirmed the Court's acceptance of the ...
''
*
Volunteer (capital punishment)
References
External links
Colorado Executions: 1859–1967*
ttp://www.clarkprosecutor.org/html/death/timeline.htm The Death Penalty: Office of the Clark County Prosecuting Attorney – Capital Punishment TimelineThe Executioner's Song: Job's not all it's cracked up to beEye for an Eye: The grisly legacy of Colorado's death penalty past
! colspan="3" ,
Executions carried out in Colorado
, -
! colspan="3" ,
Executions carried out in the United States
{{DEFAULTSORT:Monge, Luis Jose
1918 births
1967 deaths
20th-century executions by Colorado
20th-century executions of American people
American murderers of children
American rapists
Executed American mass murderers
Executed Puerto Rican people
Familicides in the United States
People convicted of murder by Colorado
People executed by Colorado by gas chamber
Puerto Rican mass murderers
Puerto Rican people convicted of murder
20th-century American murderers