Deborah Denno was quoted in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in an article about the death penalty case of Kelly Gissendaner.
Deborah Denno, a law professor at Fordham University and an expert on capital punishment, likened Gissendaner’s case to that of Karla Faye Tucker. Convicted of murder in Texas, Tucker became a Christian while in prison. Like Gissendaner, she counseled other inmates and built a following of supporters urging Texas corrections officials to commute her sentence to life in prison. It wasn’t enough: In 1998, the state gave her a lethal injection.
Gissendaner’s supporters may have just as much of an uphill fight, she said. “It’s too few people at too low a rung in the hierarchy of influence,” she said. “They would have to make a lot of noise. But who knows?”