Kelly Gissendaner was a Georgia woman executed by lethal injection on September 30, 2015, for orchestrating the 1997 murder of her husband, Douglas Gissendaner. She did not carry out the killing herself; her boyfriend, Gregory Owen, did, and he received a life sentence while she was sent to death row. That gap, along with a personal plea from Pope Francis and a former Georgia Supreme Court chief justice publicly regretting his vote to uphold her sentence, made hers one of the most contested American executions of the past decade.1BBC News. Kelly Gissendaner Execution2Equal Justice Initiative. Georgia Executes Kelly Gissendaner
The Murder She Planned
Douglas Gissendaner, a mechanic and former U.S. Army serviceman, was killed on February 7, 1997, in Gwinnett County, Georgia. Kelly Gissendaner recruited Gregory Owen, with whom she was having an affair, to do it. Owen waited at the couple’s home, took Douglas at knifepoint, drove him to a wooded area, beat him with a nightstick, and stabbed him repeatedly in the neck and back. His body was found two weeks later, face down in the mud.1BBC News. Kelly Gissendaner Execution
Kelly was at a nightclub while Owen carried out the attack. Prosecutors argued she was still the driver of the crime. She had insisted on murder rather than divorce, supplied Owen with the nightstick, the knife, and the kerosene used to burn her husband’s car, and stood to collect on a $15,000 life insurance policy she had taken out on Douglas shortly before his death.3FindLaw. Gissendaner v. State, 272 Ga. 7044Oxygen. Douglas Gissendaner Murder
On November 18, 1998, a Gwinnett County jury convicted her of malice murder and unanimously imposed the death penalty. Two statutory aggravating circumstances supported the sentence: that the murder was committed during a kidnapping with bodily injury, and that Gissendaner caused or directed another person to commit the killing.3FindLaw. Gissendaner v. State, 272 Ga. 704
The Plea Deal She Refused
Before trial, Gregory Owen took a plea. He admitted the killing, agreed to testify against Kelly, and received life with no parole eligibility for 25 years.1BBC News. Kelly Gissendaner Execution
Gissendaner was offered the same deal. She turned it down. Court records show she believed she was less culpable than Owen and would accept only a “straight life sentence” that allowed standard parole eligibility after 14 years. Her attorneys sent a counteroffer along those lines; the state rejected it. The original offer stayed open until shortly before trial, and she refused it again, choosing a jury.5FindLaw. Gissendaner v. Seaboldt, No. 12-13569
That decision produced the sentencing disparity that defined the case for the next 17 years.
Why the Sentence Was Called Disproportionate
The person who kidnapped, beat, and stabbed Douglas Gissendaner was going to be eligible for parole. The person who planned the crime was going to be killed. According to the Equal Justice Initiative, Gissendaner’s execution was the first time since Georgia reinstated the death penalty in 1976 that the state executed someone who did not personally commit the killing.2Equal Justice Initiative. Georgia Executes Kelly Gissendaner
On direct appeal, the Georgia Supreme Court acknowledged in 2000 that proportionality review takes co-defendants’ sentences into account but held that Owen’s lesser punishment alone could not make her sentence disproportionate. The court called Gissendaner the “moving force in the crime.”3FindLaw. Gissendaner v. State, 272 Ga. 704
Fifteen years later, one of the justices who signed that opinion changed his mind in public. Former Chief Justice Norman Fletcher issued a statement in September 2015 saying he had concluded that “the death sentence was not proportional and that I was wrong,” and that Gissendaner should have been spared given that the actual killer received a lesser punishment.6Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Former Chief Justice Regrets Vote in Gissendaner Case Former State Corrections Deputy Director Vanessa O’Donnell said the case showed the “arbitrariness of the death penalty.”2Equal Justice Initiative. Georgia Executes Kelly Gissendaner
Clemency, and a Letter From the Pope
With her federal appeals exhausted after the U.S. Supreme Court declined her petition in October 2014, Gissendaner asked the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles for clemency. She told the board, “I am fully responsible for my role in my husband’s murder.”7Amnesty International. Kelly Gissendaner Clemency Brief
Corrections officers, clergy, educators, fellow inmates, and two of her three children supported the petition. Officers described her as one of the most respectful inmates they had encountered and credited her with preventing several suicides by alerting staff to prisoners in crisis.7Amnesty International. Kelly Gissendaner Clemency Brief Her daughter Kayla said forgiving her mother was “the best way to truly honor my father’s memory.” Douglas Gissendaner’s family opposed clemency, saying Kelly “had no mercy, gave him no rights, no choices, nor the opportunity to live his life.”8CBS News. Children of Woman on Georgia Death Row Plead for Her Life
The board denied clemency in February 2015.9CBS News. Only Woman on Georgia’s Death Row Denied Clemency10NBC News. Pope Urges Halt to Execution of Georgia Woman Kelly Gissendaner11CBS News. Pope Francis Asks to Spare Life of Condemned Killer Kelly Gissendaner
Three Postponed Executions and a Cloudy Drug
Gissendaner’s execution was called off three times before it went ahead. A February 25, 2015, date was scrubbed for a winter storm.12Fox 5 Atlanta. Execution Delayed for Kelly Gissendaner A March 2, 2015, execution was halted around 11 p.m. after officials observed that the compounded pentobarbital appeared “cloudy.” A prison pharmacist was consulted and the execution was stopped as a precaution.13NBC News. Georgia Execution of Kelly Gissendaner Postponed Over Drug Issue
That incident triggered a separate legal fight. Georgia uses single-drug lethal injection with pentobarbital obtained from compounding pharmacies, and state law classifies the identity of anyone involved in supplying execution drugs as a “confidential state secret.” Gissendaner’s attorneys argued that the secrecy combined with the cloudy-drug episode created a substantial risk of severe pain barred by the Eighth Amendment. Medical experts cited in the case noted that cloudiness in an injectable solution can indicate particulate matter or improper chemical balance and could cause intense burning pain. The district court dismissed the challenge and the Eleventh Circuit affirmed under Glossip v. Gross, which requires a prisoner to identify a feasible alternative method that would reduce the risk of pain. Judge Jordan dissented, saying the state’s secrecy laws effectively prevented Gissendaner from gathering evidence to prove her case.14U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. Gissendaner v. Commissioner, No. 15-14335
Her final execution date was September 29, 2015. Last-minute filings, including three separate applications to the U.S. Supreme Court, delayed the scheduled 7 p.m. lethal injection by more than five hours. All were denied.15CNN. Georgia Execution of Kelly Gissendaner
Rehabilitation, and Her Last Words
Supporters of clemency pointed to what Gissendaner had done in prison. She enrolled in a theology program at Lee Arrendale State Prison run through Emory University’s Candler School of Theology and its partner seminaries, completing a Certificate in Theological Studies in 2010. Liz Bounds, a Candler associate professor of Christian ethics who co-founded the program, said Gissendaner “not only takes responsibility for the murder she had planned but also tries to act out of her understanding of redemption and compassionate love.”16Emory University. Panel to Discuss Redemption, Death Penalty, and Kelly Gissendaner Her attorney Susan Casey said, “She’s the only person I’ve ever represented who, every day, forgot her own defense to talk about the hurt she caused.”17Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Former Inmates Rally to Save Murderess From Death
Kelly Gissendaner was pronounced dead at 12:21 a.m. on September 30, 2015, at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson. She was 47.18CBS News. Georgia Woman Kelly Gissendaner Apologized, Sang Before Being Executed19Fox 5 Atlanta. Kelly Gissendaner’s Last Words Before Being Executed
Her Place in Execution History
Gissendaner was the only woman on Georgia’s death row at the time of her execution, the first woman put to death in Georgia in 70 years, and the 16th woman executed in the United States since the death penalty was reinstated nationally in 1976.20The Marshall Project. Georgia Executed Its First Woman in 70 Years21Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Justice Has Different Meanings for Kelly Gissendaner Family8CBS News. Children of Woman on Georgia Death Row Plead for Her Life