UPDATE: Gissendaner Executed Against Wishes Of Pope, Children

Kelly Gissendaner Jackson Georgia
Photo Courtesy: UPI

JACKSON, Ga., Sept. 29 (UPI) — Kelly Gissendaner was executed Tuesday night after hours of delays and after the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles had earlier in the day decided to go ahead with the planned execution.

Prison officials denied Kelly Renee Gissendaner’s request for clemency and set her execution originally for 7 p.m. local time Tuesday. She is the first woman executed in the state in 70 years, and the first “non-trigger” Georgia convict to be put to death in nearly 40 years.

A defense request for a stay of execution was also rejected by a federal judge on Monday.

Gissendaner was sentenced to death in 1998 for recruiting her boyfriend to kill her husband. She was set to die twice this year already — in February and March — but the executions were scrapped due to inclement weather and concerns about one of the execution drugs, respectively.

The case reached a higher profile last week when Pope Francis called on the United States to bar capital punishment, and urged Georgia officials through a local archbishop to commute Gissendaner’s sentence.

“While not wishing to minimize the gravity of the crime for which Ms. Gissendander has been convicted, and while sympathizing with the victims, I nonetheless implore you, in consideration of the reasons that have been expressed to your board, to commute the sentence to one that would better express both justice and mercy,” Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano wrote to officials.

Corrections officials, though, announced they would let the original denial of clemency, which was issued in February, stand — allowing the execution to proceed.

The board’s decision also went against the wishes of the Gissendaners’ three children, who had asked for clemency. Her ex-husband’s relatives, though, want her put to death.

“In the last 18 years, our mission has been to seek justice for Doug’s murder and to keep his memory alive. We have faith in our legal system and do believe that Kelly has been afforded every right that our legal system affords,” Douglas Gissendaner’s family said in a statement Tuesday. “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. She had no mercy … His life was not hers to take.”

The defense team’s main argument has been that Gissendaner’s sentence is harsher than that of her ex-boyfriend, Greg Owen, who committed the murder. Owen was given a life sentence in exchange for his testimony against Gissendaner.

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