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Kelly Renee Gissendaner
Kelly Renee Gissendaner
GEORGIA (USA): KELLY RENEE GISSENDANER EXECUTED

September 30, 2015: After several denied appeals Georgia has executed its only female death row inmate. Kelly Renee Gissendaner died by lethal injection of pentobarbital Wednesday at 12:21 a.m. at the state prison in Jackson.
She 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 the first woman executed in the state in 70 years.
The United States Supreme court denied Gissendaner, 47, three stays of execution on Tuesday.
The Supreme Court of Georgia also denied her a stay of execution Tuesday and the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles declined to grant her clemency after it met on earlier on Tuesday to consider new testimony from supporters. The board didn’t give a reason for the denial, but said it had carefully considered her request for reconsideration. Gissendaner was previously scheduled for execution 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, also 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, and the board agreed to review new documents and hear from her representatives.
Pope Francis’ diplomatic representative in the U.S., Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, on Tuesday sent a letter to the parole board on behalf of the pontiff asking for a commutation of Gissendaner’s sentence “to one that would better express both justice and mercy.” He cited an address the pope made to a joint session of Congress last week in which he called for the abolition of the death penalty. It wasn't clear whether the board saw the Vatican representative's letter.
A spokesman for the board declined to comment, saying what happens inside the hearings is private. This isn't the only U.S. case on which Pope Francis -- who called for an end to the death penalty when he spoke in Congress last week -- has commented.
His representative has also sent a letter to Oklahoma's governor, asking her to commute the death sentence for Richard Glossip, who's scheduled to be executed there Wednesday.
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, wanted to make a plea for his mother’s life, said Susan Casey, an attorney for Gissendaner.
In the request for reconsideration, Gissendaner’s lawyers cited a statement from former Georgia Supreme Court Chief Justice Norman Fletcher, who argued 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 his decision 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 argued she was a seriously damaged woman who has undergone a spiritual transformation 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 included 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 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 Monday that he is the victim and that 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.
Gissendaner becomes the 3rd execution this year in Georgia, and the 58th overall since the state resumed capital punishment in 1983. She is the 21st execution this year in the USA, and the 1415th overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 1977. (Sources: Hands off Cain, 30/09/2015)

OKLAHOMA (USA): CITING QUESTION OVER NEW DRUG, GOVERNOR HALTS GLOSSIP'S EXECUTION
IRAN: DEATH SENTENCE COMMUTED TO TWO YEARS' THEOLOGY STUDY
MALAYSIA: IRANIAN WOMAN, MOTHER SENTENCED TO DEATH FOR DRUG TRAFFICKING
INDIA: FIVE MEN SENTENCED TO DEATH FOR 2006 MUMBAI TRAIN BLASTS
PAKISTAN: DEATH ROW CONVICT HANGED IN LAHORE
SOMALIA: FORMER AL-SHABAAB FIGHTER EXECUTED IN BAIDOA FOR RAPE CASE
EGYPT: SINAI MILITANTS' DEATH SENTENCE UPHELD
EGYPT: THREE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD MEMBERS SENTENCED TO DEATH
PAKISTAN: TWO MURDER CONVICTS, INCLUDING A JUVENILE OFFENDER, EXECUTED IN PUNJAB
INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY CONDEMNS U.S., RECOMMENDS END TO POLICE DEADLY FORCE, RACIAL PROFILING AND DEATH PENALTY
KENYA: FOUR WHO SHOT AND KILLED UHURU KIN SENTENCED TO DEATH
USA: TEXAS GIVES VIRGINIA LETHAL DRUG FOR EXECUTIONS
VISIT TO THE JOINT SESSION OF THE UNITED STATES CONGRESS - ADDRESS OF THE HOLY FATHER
IN ADDRESS TO CONGRESS, POPE FRANCIS CALLS FOR ABOLITION OF DEATH PENALTY
USA: WHITE HOUSE WON’T WEIGH IN DIRECTLY ON POPE’S CALL FOR END TO DEATH PENALTY
INDIA: TWO SENTENCED TO DEATH FOR MINOR RAPE AND MURDER
EGYPT: PRESIDENT AL SISI PARDONS TWO JAILED AL JAZEERA REPORTERS
PAKISTAN: ONE DEATH ROW CONVICT HANGED IN LAHORE
INDIA-BASED FIRM DOESN'T WANT DRUG USED FOR ARKANSAS EXECUTIONS
PAKISTAN COURT DELAYS PARAPLEGIC'S EXECUTION
SAUDI ARABIA MUST IMMEDIATELY HALT EXECUTION OF CHILDREN – UN RIGHTS EXPERTS URGE
PAKISTAN: TWO SENTENCED TO DEATH FOR PML-N LEADER’S MURDER
PAKISTAN CONFIRMS DEATH SENTENCES FOR NINE MILITANTS LINKED TO TERRORIST ATTACKS
SYRIA: ISIS EXECUTES 10 FOR BEING GAY
IRAN: TWO MEN HANGED IN THE PRISON OF RASHT AND ONE IN PUBLIC IN THE CITY OF ARDESTAN
IRAN: YOUNG PRISONER EXECUTED IN MASHHAD FOR HARASSING WOMAN
JORDAN: CASSATION COURT UPHOLDS DEATH SENTENCE OF MAN FOR KILLING BROTHER-IN-LAW
PAKISTAN: NO MERCY FOR MEN ACCUSED OF BLASPHEMY
SOMALIA: SEVEN SOLDIERS EXECUTED FOR ‘MURDERING CIVILIANS’
KUWAIT: FAKE COP SENTENCED TO DEATH FOR RAPE

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