Prison officials said a test of a specially-made batch of lethal injection drugs did not create clumps like those in the compounded pentobarbitol that caused the state to call off the scheduled execution of Kelly Gissendaner in March.
In a filing with U.S. District Court where Gissendaner has filed a lawsuit, lawyers for the state insisted that while the test did not produce the results they expected, they remain certain storing the lethal injection drug in cold temperatures had caused “precipitation” and consequently clumps in vials that had been readied to put her to death more than four months ago.
“However, storing pentobarbital at temperatures that are too cold does not always cause precipitation,” the Department of Corrections wrote in the document filed Friday.
The scheduled hour of Gissendaner’s execution for the 1997 Gwinnett County murder of her husband, Douglas, had passed when the DOC called it off because the compounded batch of pentobarbitol was “cloudy.” A subsequent test of the drug by an independent lab suggested that storing the drug in cold temperatures was the cause.
DOC promised the federal judge considering Gissendaner’s lawsuit that it would conduct another test by putting pentobarbitol in a refrigerator set just a few degrees above freezing and an identical batch in warmer refrigerator, the same one in use the night Gissendaner was to have been executed, March 2. Instead, the DOC only used one refrigerator; a second batch was stored at room temperature.
The test started March 24 and ended April 3 and the pentobarbitol did not change in appearance, according to the court filing.
Gissendaner said in her lawsuit she was subjected to mental anguish by the delay and the uncertainty of whether she would die. She also challenged the state’s use of compounded pentobarbitol.
Georgia — like other death penalty states — started using an unidentified private pharmacy to make its lethal injection drugs because public pressure on companies that made it impossible to secure drugs for executions.
Gissendaner did not actually kill her husband but a Gwinnett County jury condemned her for planning it and persuading her lover to carry it out. Gregory Owen kidnapped Douglas Gissendaner and drove him to a remote area of the county, where he knocked Douglas Gissendaner unconscious and stabbed him to death.
Owen pleaded guilty to murdering Douglas Gissendaner and helped prosecutors with their case against Kelly Gissendaner. Consequently, Owen was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after he has served 25 years.
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