Gissendaner Files Suit Over Postponed Execution

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The lawyers for condemned murderer Kelly Renee Gissendaner have filed a federal lawsuit asking that her pending execution be declared unconstitutional.

The suit, filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Atlanta, claims Gissendaner, 47, was put through undue “mortal fear” before her scheduled execution on March 2 was postponed after authorities noticed a cloudy appearance in the drug.

The suit claims the state botched the execution by failing to have the proper drugs in place for a humane death and forced Gissendaner to an agonizing wait as officials decided what to do, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

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Gissendaner was scheduled to die by lethal injection at 7 p.m. March 2 at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson, but it was more than three hours later when the execution was called off. It was 10:19 p.m. when Gissendaner’s lawyers were called with news of the postponement, the Gwinnett Daily Post reported.

On March 3, the Georgia Department of Corrections announced the execution would be postponed indefinitely ”while an analysis is conducted of the drugs planned for use in last night’s scheduled execution of inmate Gissendaner.” Also postponed was the scheduled March 10 execution of Brian Keith Terrell.

• Read the entire lawsuit on 11Alive

The lawsuit also asks the court to block Gissendaner’s execution until lawyers and the court can complete an investigation into the postponed execution, the AJC reported.

Gissendaner, of Auburn, Ga., was convicted of plotting the murder of her husband, Douglas, near Dacula in 1997. She is currently the only woman on Georgia’s death row. If executed, she would be the first woman put to death in Georgia in 70 years.