ATLANTA (AP) – One day before the only woman on Georgia’s death row is set to be executed, the state Board of Pardons and Paroles on Monday scheduled a new clemency hearing in her case.
Kelly Renee Gissendaner, 47, is set to die by injection of pentobarbital at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the state prison in Jackson. She was previously scheduled to die March 2, but state officials called off the execution “out of an abundance of caution” after noticing that the execution drug was “cloudy.”
The new hearing will be held Tuesday morning.
The parole board, the only entity authorized to commute a death sentence in Georgia, said in a news release that its members have thoroughly reviewed a second request from Gissendaner’s lawyers to reconsider a February decision denying clemency. They are holding the new hearing to gather additional information from representatives for Gissendaner, the release says.
Gissendaner was convicted of murder in the February 1997 slaying of her husband, Douglas Gissendaner. Prosecutors said she conspired with her lover, Gregory Owen, who stabbed Douglas Gissendaner to death. Owen, who took a plea deal and testified against Gissendaner, is serving life in prison and will become eligible for parole in 2022.