Georgia's sole female death row inmate set to be executed

ATLANTA (Reuters) - The only woman on death row in Georgia is scheduled to be executed on Monday for her husband's 1997 murder, barring last-minute legal action. Kelly Renee Gissendaner, 46, would be the first woman executed by the state in 70 years. Prosecutors said she plotted with her boyfriend, Gregory Owen, to kill her husband, Douglas Gissendaner, who was stabbed to death in a desolate area in suburban Atlanta after being abducted from his home. Owen confessed to carrying out the Feb. 7, 1997, murder and implicated Kelly Gissendaner. He is serving a life sentence. Gissendaner's execution by injection was reset for Monday night at a prison in Jackson, Georgia, after a winter storm prompted state officials to postpone it last week. The Georgia Supreme Court on Monday afternoon turned down Gissendaner's request for a stay of execution. Gissendaner's attorneys asked the State Board of Pardons and Paroles to reconsider its decision last week to deny her request to commute the sentence from death to life without parole. In their clemency petition to the parole board, Gissendaner's lawyers said the death row inmate has "accepted responsibility" for her actions that led to the death of her husband and has "shown a commitment to seeking redemption through spiritual growth and serving others." The state last executed a woman on March 5, 1945. Lena Baker died in the electric chair but was granted a pardon in 2005 after officials said she should have been given clemency for killing her abusive employer in self-defense. (Reporting by David Beasley; Writing by Colleen Jenkins; Editing by Bill Trott and Eric Beech)