Kelly Renee Gissendaner’s execution is back on.
The Georgia death row inmate — who could become the state’s first female convict to be executed in 70 years — is now set to die on September 29, the Georgia Department of Corrections said Friday.
Officials had scheduled a date before, only to call it off.
Late last February, the state postponed the first planned execution because of “weather and associated scheduling issues,” department spokeswoman Gwendolyn Hogan said. A few days later, the corrections department indefinitely postponed Gissendaner’s execution after finding “cloudy” lethal injection drugs.
The same agency, in a press release Friday, did not mention anything about such execution drugs.
It did state that Gwinnett County Superior Court had ordered Gissendaner’s execution to take place between September 29 and October 6. Department of Corrections Commissioner Homer Bryson set the date and place, which is the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson.
The constitutionality of lethal injection drugs has made headlines in recent years and European manufacturers — such as Denmark-based Lundbeck, which manufactures pentobarbital — have banned U.S. prisons from using their drugs in executions in 2013. That meant 32 states had to find new drug protocols.
Last year, Oklahoma issued a monthslong moratorium on executions after murderer and rapist Clayton Lockett convulsed, writhed and lay alive on a gurney for 43 minutes before dying. It was the state’s first time using a new, three-drug cocktail for an execution.
Gissendaner, 47, was sentenced to death in 1998. The year before, she was involved in a murder plot in which she conspired with boyfriend Gregory Owen to murder her husband, Douglas, in 1997.
More than 85,000 people have signed a petition urging Gov. Nathan Deal to halt her execution, claiming the mother of three has turned her life around and calling her a “powerful voice for good.”
“While incarcerated, she has been a pastoral presence to many, teaching, preaching and living a life of purpose,” the petition states. “Kelly is a living testament to the possibility of change and the power of hope. She is an extraordinary example of the rehabilitation that the corrections system aims to produce.”
If she is put to death, Gissendaner has already requested an extravagant last meal: two Burger King Whoppers with cheese (with everything), two large orders of fries, popcorn, cornbread, a side of buttermilk and a salad with tomatoes, bell peppers, onions, carrots, cheese, boiled eggs and Newman’s Own buttermilk dressing, according to the Corrections Department. She’s also asked for a glass of lemonade and cherry-vanilla ice cream for dessert.
Executing female convicts is rare. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, 15 women have been put to death in the United States since 1976. The last woman in Georgia to meet this fate was Lena Baker in 1945.