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Georgia clergy ask for clemency for female death row inmate

Hundreds of clergy spoke out in favor of clemency for Kelly Renee Gissendaner, the only woman on Georgia's death row. Her pleas for clemency have been rejected despite the fact that she’s earned a theology degree and transformed her life while in prison.

By Denise Royal
Kelly Renee Gissendaner. Photo courtesy the Georgia Department of Corrections
Kelly Renee Gissendaner. Photo courtesy the Georgia Department of Corrections

ATLANTA, March 1 (UPI) -- Hundreds of clergy spoke out in favor of clemency for Kelly Renee Gissendaner, the only woman on Georgia's death row. Her pleas for clemency have been rejected despite the fact that she's earned a theology degree and transformed her life while in prison. According to NBC News, nearly 400 clergy signed Sunday's open letter to state and federal judges and elected officials — pointing to Gissendaner's acceptance of full responsibility for her crime and her graduation from the program for incarcerated women at the Candler School of Theology at Emory University, in which she became a teacher. Gissendaner is scheduled to die Monday night for her involvement in the 1997 stabbing death of her husband, Douglas Gissendaner. She had been scheduled to be executed last Wednesday, but the execution was postponed because of bad weather. A vigil was planned for Sunday night in Atlanta. Gissendaner's lawyers have argued that it's unfair to execute her when it was her lover who actually stabbed her husband — and he got only life in prison. Gissendaner's lawyers also attempted to appeal her sentence to the U.S. Supreme Court, but were denied in October 2014. The state's parole board denied her request for clemency last week. The last woman to be executed in Georgia died by electrocution in 1945.

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