Georgia executed the state's only woman on death row early Wednesday morning. Kelly Gissendaner was the first woman the state has executed in 70 years. She was sentenced to death in 1998 for plotting the death of her husband, Douglas Gissendaner, with her boyfriend.
Gissendaner drove her boyfriend, Gregory Owen, to her house, gave him the murder weapons — a nightstick and a hunting knife — and then went to a nightclub with friends, according to court documents. Owen ambushed Douglas and forced him to drive his car to a remote location that Gissendaner chose beforehand.
Once they arrived, Owen beat Douglas and stabbed him. Owen took Douglas's wedding ring and watch to make it look like a robbery. Gissendaner later arrived at the scene and helped her boyfriend burn her husband's body and car. Law enforcement was unable to find Douglas's body for weeks.
Owen accepted a plea deal and testified against Gissendaner. In exchange, he received a life sentence without the possibility of parole. Gissendaner refused to take a plea and lost when she went to trial.
As Gissendaner's execution date neared, two of her and Douglas's children called for her life to be spared.
"We've lost our dad. We can't imagine losing our mom, too," daughter Kayla Gissendaner said.
In response, Gwinnett County District Attorney Danny Porter told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that it was "manipulation."
"The case began with manipulation by Kelly Gissendaner and it appears it will end with manipulation by Kelly Gissendaner," he said, adding that Douglas's parents have wanted the execution to go forward.
On Tuesday, the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles met to "receive and consider supplemental information" about the case. But afterward, the board reached the same conclusion as before: That Gissendaner was undeserving of clemency. The board has the sole authority to grant clemency in Georgia.
This is the third time the state has set an execution date for Gissendaner. The first time, it was called off because of the weather. The second time, it was called off after the execution drugs were found to have particles floating in them.
Georgia, like some other death penalty states, obtains its execution drugs from a compounding pharmacy that mixes the drug in secret.
The state concluded that the likeliest cause was that the drugs were stored at too cold of a temperature, although its expert said it was possible that there was a problem with how it was mixed, and the state attempted to withhold test results that disagreed with its narrative.
Gissendaner's attorneys argued that the hours she waited not knowing if the "cloudy" drugs would be used on her amounted to cruel and unusual punishment, and that it showed the state was likely to use questionable drugs on her in the future.
But U.S. District Judge Thomas Thrash disagreed, finding that the state "did not intentionally subject [her] to uncertainty for the sake of inflicting more pain upon her."
"It is not enough to show that the State may obtain defective lethal injection drugs," the judge wrote when he dismissed the case in August. Gissendaner "must show that there is a substantial risk that the defective drugs will be used on" her in the future.
He added that, "if anything, the March 2 incident shows that the state is unlikely to use defective drugs on" her.
Gissendaner asked him to reconsider his ruling, which the judge declined to do. Gissendaner eventually appealed the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, which declined to take the case.
Georgia used compounded drugs again, but this time said it would store the drugs in a new refrigeration unit to regulate its temperature.
Gissendaner petitioned the Georgia Supreme Court for a stay of execution based on her claim that prison officials violated her rights by having "thwarted" the clemency process.
Claiming that officials "actively frustrated the [clemency] procedures established by Georgia law," Gissendaner's lawyers write that such actions violated her constitutional due process rights.
In a 5-2 decision, the state court declined to halt her execution on those grounds.