UPDATE: Gissendaner’s exe­cu­tion has been resched­uled to Monday, March 2, due to a win­ter storm fore­cast to hit Georgia. Previously: On February 25 the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles denied clemen­cy to Kelly Gissendaner, the only woman on the state’s death row. Gissendaner was con­vict­ed of orches­trat­ing the mur­der of her hus­band, but did not car­ry out the killing her­self. At Gissendaner’s clemen­cy hear­ing, 21 peo­ple tes­ti­fied in favor of a reduc­tion in sen­tence, includ­ing two of Gissendaner’s chil­dren, sev­er­al prison vol­un­teers, and mem­bers of the cler­gy. Gissendaner’s daugh­ter, Kayla, said, ​“My father’s death was extreme­ly painful for many peo­ple, but I’ve recent­ly con­clud­ed that in many ways I was the per­son who was most impact­ed by his mur­der. The impact of los­ing my moth­er would be dev­as­tat­ing. I can’t fath­om los­ing anoth­er par­ent.” The man who com­mit­ted the mur­der plead­ed guilty in exchange for a life sen­tence. Gissendaner’s attor­ney advised her not to take the same deal, say­ing that he thought a jury would not sen­tence her to death, ​“because she was a woman and because she did not actu­al­ly kill Doug.” Unless an appeals court halts the exe­cu­tion, Gissendaner will be the first woman exe­cut­ed in Georgia in 70 years.

(K. Brumback, ​“Ga. set to exe­cute only female death row inmate this week,” Associated Press, February 23, 2015; K. Brumback, ​“Georgia Parole Board denies clemen­cy for Kelly Gissendaner,” Associated Press, February 25, 2015). The exe­cu­tion was orig­i­nal­ly sched­uled for Feb. 25. See Women and Clemency.

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