By Kate Brumback
Associated Press
ATLANTA — The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles plans to meet Tuesday to consider new information in support of clemency for the lone woman on the state’s death row.
The parole board meeting, set for 11 a.m., comes eight hours before Kelly Renee Gissendaner is scheduled to die by injection of pentobarbital at the state prison in Jackson. Gissendaner, 47, was convicted of murder in the February 1997 slaying of her husband. She conspired with her lover, who stabbed Douglas Gissendaner to death.
Gissendaner was previously scheduled for execution on Feb. 25, but that was delayed because of a threat of winter weather. Her execution was reset for March 2, but corrections officials postponed that execution “out of an abundance of caution” because the execution drug appeared “cloudy.”
The parole board, which is the only entity in Georgia authorized to commute a death sentence, declined to spare Gissendaner’s life after a clemency hearing in February. Her lawyers asked the board to reconsider its decision before the second execution date, but the board stood by its decision to deny clemency.
Gissendaner’s lawyers last Thursday submitted a second request to reconsider the denial of clemency. The parole board said Monday that its members have thoroughly reviewed that request. The board said the meeting Tuesday will allow it to gather additional information from representatives for Gissendaner.
The board could let its earlier denial of clemency stand, issue a stay of up to 90 days to further consider the case or grant clemency and commute her sentence.
Two of Gissendaner’s three children already asked the board earlier this year to spare their mother’s life. Her oldest child, Brandon, who had not previously addressed the board, now wants to make a plea for his mother’s life, said Susan Casey, an attorney for Gissendaner.
In the request for reconsideration, Gissendaner’s lawyers cite a statement from former Georgia Supreme Court Chief Justice Norman Fletcher, who argues that Gissendaner’s death sentence is not proportionate to her role in the crime. Her lover, Gregory Owen, who did the killing, is serving a life prison sentence and will become eligible for parole in 2022.
Fletcher said he has now decided he was wrong in voting to deny Gissendaner’s appeal in 2000 when he sat on the state Supreme Court, the statement says. He also notes that Georgia hasn’t executed a person who didn’t actually carry out a killing since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976.
Gissendaner’s lawyers also argue she was a seriously damaged woman has undergone a spiritual transformation while in prison and has been a model prisoner who has shown remorse and provided hope to other inmates in their personal struggles. The new request for reconsideration includes testimony from several women who were locked up as teens and who said Gissendaner counseled them through moments when they felt scared, lost or on the verge of giving up hope.
Two of her three children, Dakota and Kayla, previously addressed the board and earlier this month released a video pleading for their mother’s life to be spared. They detailed their own tough journeys to forgiving her and said they would suffer terribly from having a second parent taken from them.
Douglas Gissendaner’s family said in a statement released Monday that he is the victim and Kelly Gissendaner received an appropriate sentence.
“As the murderer, she’s been given more rights and opportunity over the last 18 years than she ever afforded to Doug who, again, is the victim here,” the statement says. “She had no mercy, gave him no rights, no choices, nor the opportunity to live his life.”
Kelly Gissendaner repeatedly pushed Owen in late 1996 to kill her husband rather than just divorcing him as Owen suggested, prosecutors have said. Acting on her instructions, Owen ambushed Douglas Gissendaner at Gissendaner’s home, forced him to drive to a remote area and stabbed him multiple times, prosecutors said.
Investigators looking into the killing zeroed in on Owen once they learned of his affair with Kelly Gissendaner. He initially denied involvement but eventually confessed and implicated Kelly Gissendaner.