|
 Kelly Renee Gissendaner, 46, condemned for the murder of her
husband in 1997, would have been the first woman executed by the
state in 70 years.
"Within the hours leading up to the scheduled execution, the
Execution Team performed the necessary checks. At that time, the
drugs appeared cloudy," Georgia Department of Corrections
spokeswoman Gwendolyn Hogan said in a statement.
"The Department of Corrections immediately consulted with a
pharmacist, and in an abundance of caution, Inmate Gissendaner’s
execution has been postponed," Hogan said.
It was not immediately clear to when the execution would be
rescheduled.
Prosecutors said Gissendaner plotted with her boyfriend, Gregory
Owen, to kill her husband, Douglas Gissendaner, who was stabbed to
death in a desolate area in suburban Atlanta after being abducted
from his home.
 Owen confessed to carrying out the Feb. 7, 1997, murder and
implicated Kelly Gissendaner. He is serving a life sentence.
Gissendaner's execution by injection was reset for Monday night at a
prison in Jackson, Georgia, after a winter storm prompted state
officials to postpone it last week.
The Georgia Supreme Court on Monday afternoon turned down
Gissendaner's request for a stay of execution.
Gissendaner's attorneys had also asked the State Board of Pardons
and Paroles to reconsider its decision last week to deny her request
to commute the sentence from death to life without parole. The board
denied that request on Monday.
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Her lawyers made an 11th-hour argument to the U.S. Supreme Court
after an appeals court rejected her attorneys' request for a delay,
saying that Georgia's lethal injection process is not transparent
enough to be challenged in court.
In a Supreme Court filing, they argued that the court also should
note that she did not kill her husband herself and had reformed
herself.
In their clemency petition to the parole board, Gissendaner's
lawyers said the death row inmate has "accepted responsibility" for
her actions and has "shown a commitment to seeking redemption
through spiritual growth and serving others."
The state last executed a woman on March 5, 1945. Lena Baker died in
the electric chair but was granted a pardon in 2005 after officials
said she should have been given clemency for killing her abusive
employer in self-defense.
(Reporting by David Beasley and Curtis Skinner; Writing by Colleen
Jenkins; Editing by Bill Trott and Eric Beech)
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