Kelly On My Mind

I met Kelly Gissendaner a year and a half ago, when I was on a tour of Lee Arrendale State Prison.  As part of our contextual education at Candler School of Theology, a group of my classmates and I would be spending four hours a week at Lee Arrendale as chaplain interns.  We were touring the prison before receiving our specific assignments.

Kelly greeted us with a smile.  As the only woman on death row, she was isolated from other prisoners, and she enjoyed having visitors.  She showed us the baby blankets she had been crocheting to donate outside the prison, and she was excited that the prison administration was going to allow her to have knitting needles, so she could relearn how to knit.

I was assigned to a different part of the prison, so I didn't see Kelly again, but I would hear about her.  How her favorite theologian is Jürgen Moltmann, and they are pen pals.  How Moltmann came when she earned her certificate from the Theological Studies Program in prison.  How she encouraged other inmates and challenged my classmates with her theological insights.

Last month, I ran into Chaplain Bishop, my supervisor in the prison.  She asked me, with tears in her eyes, to pray for Ms. Kelly.  Her clemency hearing before the Board of Parole was coming up, and if they denied clemency, she would be executed.  My classmates and I prayed.  People wrote letters and testified on Kelly's behalf at the hearing.  We held vigils and waited for news.

When the news came that the board had denied clemency, it was shocking.  People at Candler were devastated, and I can only imagine how those at Lee Arrendale felt.  Kelly was scheduled to be executed last Wednesday, but due to bad weather, her execution has been postponed until Monday.

I don't know Kelly well, but I know Lee Arrendale.  I know the fences with barbed wire and the locked gates.  I know how the buildings and the inmates' uniforms blend together, until it seems like the entire world is a monotonous sea of khaki.  I have sat with women as they grieved over the deaths of family members, worried about their children and grandchildren, and counted the days until they could leave.

Some studies have shown that over 80 percent of women in prison have experienced physical or sexual abuse before being incarcerated.  Unfortunately, Kelly is included in that number.  These women do not need the state to add to their experience of trauma and violence.  They need people to hear their stories, see them, and know who they are.

I do not want Kelly to be a martyr.  I do not want her to be a rallying point for a political cause.  I just want them not to kill her.



More information about Kelly Gissendaner

New York Times, A Death Row Inmate Finds Common Ground with Theologians

Huffington Post, Meeting Kelly Gissendaner and When Is Grace Enough?

Kelly Gissendaner's Clemency Application

The hashtag on Twitter and Facebook for Kelly is #kellyonmymind