The Georgia Department of Corrections said Thursday its analysis of the cloudy lethal injection drug to caused them to cancel the scheduled execution of a woman earlier this year found there was nothing wrong with the pentobarbital specifically made to put Kelly Grissendaner to death.
DOC said in a statement the state-paid testers determined that the dosage was cloudy because it was stored at a temperature that was too low. The experts who did the analysis offered suggestions for ensuring lethal injection drugs are safe, which the department said it would adopt.
Gissendaner was to have been executed in March for persuading her lover to murder of her husband in 1997. Hours after the appointed time for her death, the execution was called off because DOC doctors were troubled that the drug was cloudy.
Officials will have to seek an new execution warrant before Gissendaner can be executed for Douglas Gissendaner’s murder in Gwinnett County.
If she is executed, Gissendaner will be the first woman Georgia has put to death since 1945.
