US State executes woman despite Pope's plea

A US State has executed a woman prisoner for the first time in 70 years despite the fact that she did not kill anyone and Pope Francis made a plea of mercy on her behalf.

Kelly Gissendaner was put to death on Wednesday morning at a prison in Georgia after multiple requests by her lawyers to the US Supreme Court to try to spare her life and a plea to a parole board by two of her three children.

The 47-year-old was convicted of murder for convincing her lover to kill her husband in 1997.

Attorney Susan Casey said Gissendaner's children were "heartbroken".

"We asked the board for an additional 24 hours so they could visit their mother," she said. "That was refused."

Gissendaner was Georgia's first female convict to be executed in 70 years.

Pope Francis’ US nuncio appealed on the Pope's behalf to Georgia officials to commute the death sentence of Kelly Gissendaner yesterday. In a letter to the board, Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano quoted the words of Pope Francis to Congress on 24th September, noting that the Pope had, since the beginning of his ministry, advocated for the global abolition of the death penalty.

"I am convinced that this way is the best, since every life is sacred, every human person is endowed with an inalienable dignity, and society can only benefit from the rehabilitation of those convicted of crimes," Pope Francis told Congress.

In his letter, Archbishop Vigano said that he did not wish to minimise the gravity of the crime for which Gissendaner was convicted and that he sympathized with the victims. "I nonetheless implore you … to commute the sentence to one that would better express both justice and mercy."

"Please be assured of my prayers as you consider this request by Pope Francis for what I believe would be a just act of clemency," Archbishop Vigano wrote.

Gissendaner was convicted in the 1997 murder of her husband, Douglas Gissendaner. Prosecutors said she conspired with Gregory Owen, her boyfriend, who stabbed the husband to death. Owen testified against Gissendaner in a plea deal that left him with a sentence of life in prison without chance for parole.

Her application for clemency notes that she has been a model prisoner and that the person who actually carried out the crime received a lighter sentence than she did.

The State of Georgia is a regular focus for anti-death penalty campaigners as it has executed more than 1,000 people since 1735 (PA)

Yesterday, Atlanta Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory read the nuncio's letter and referred to his own request sent a week earlier to the parole board.

In that letter, he told the board that as "one of the shepherds of the Catholic Church in Georgia, I seek to contribute to a civilisation that promotes human dignity by striking a balance between the demands of justice and the need for charity. Commuting the death sentence of Kelly Gissendaner to one of life without parole is compatible with that goal."

The plea on behalf of Pope Francis just after he left the United States is reminiscent of a similar plea made by St. John Paul II in 1999.

While visiting Missouri, the pope made a specific plea to then-Gov. Mel Carnahan to spare the life of Darrell Mease. Mease, convicted of a triple murder, was scheduled to be executed a few days later.

In announcing the commutation, Carnahan said he would spare Mease because the pope had asked him to do so.

In addition to Gissendaner, Richard Glossip was scheduled to be executed by the State of Oklahoma today. Glossip's case challenging Oklahoma's drug protocol for executions went to the Supreme Court.

In June, a strongly divided court ruled the State's protocol was constitutional. In dissenting, Justices Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg questioned whether the death penalty itself should be declared unconstitutional.

Like Gissendaner, Glossip was convicted in a murder which another person admitted to committing. Justin Sneed confessed to killing Bobby Van Treese in 1997, but testified against Glossip in return for a lighter sentence, life imprisonment without parole.