Francis leaves -- and U.S. flips the death penalty switch back on

When Pope Francis' jet took off from Philadelphia International Airport at 7:47 p.m. on Sunday, you know who breathed a huge sigh of relief? I mean, besides Mayor Nutter. The nation's proud execution workers. They quickly grabbed their hoods -- or whatever executioners wear in the 21st Century -- and their briefcases full of lethal cocktails and went back to work, still partying like it's 1099.

It already seems like a long time ago that Francis stood up before a joint session of Congress and said this:

"Every life is sacred, every human person is endowed with an inalienable dignity, and society can only benefit from the rehabilitation of those convicted of crimes," he said. "Recently my brother bishops here in the United States renewed their call for the abolition of the death penalty. Not only do I support them, but I also offer encouragement to all those who are convinced that a just and necessary punishment must never exclude the dimension of hope and the goal of rehabilitation."

I guess the lights went out in Georgia while the pontiff was uttering those words last week -- or more likely they just don't care. Early this morning, the Peach State executed a woman for the first time in 70 years. Kelly Renee Gissendaner, 47, who'd conspired in 1997 with her boyfriend to have her husband murdered, was put to death by lethal injection. Gissendaner, who'd become a minister behind bars, was singing "Amazing Grace" right up to the moment they stuck her with a needle and killed her.

Pope Francis -- kind of like the tourist in a strange land who talks louder after no one understands him the first time -- issued a specific plea for the life of Gissendaner. His U.S. representative wrote to the Georgia Board of Pardons and Parole: "While not wishing to minimize the gravity of the crime for which Ms. Gissendaner has been convicted, and while sympathizing with the victims, I nonetheless implore you, in consideration of the reasons that have been expressed to your board, to commute the sentence to one that would better express both justice and mercy."

But that didn't matter.

Nor did it matter that Gissendaner's two children, who reconciled with their mom a number of years ago, pleaded with the state to spare their only living parent. "My dad would not want my mom to be executed, even knowing her role in his murder," Kayla Gissendaner said in a statement. "He would not want us to endure another devastating loss."

Nor did it matter that Gissendaner had earned a divinity degree behind bars and that several former inmates credit her with playing a huge role in turning their lives around. "Kelly told me God loved me," said Kara Stephens, a convicted bank robber who later started the Struggle Sisters, a network of formerly incarcerated women. "Kelly taught me to hope." But now Kelly is gone. Once the wheels of Georgia's midnight execution train start spinning, they just don't stop.

Oh, one more curiosity about this case. Gregory Owen, that boyfriend who actually plunged the knife into the neck and back of Douglas Gissendaner, killing him? He's very much alive. In fact, prosecutors cut a deal to spare him any chance of the death penalty if he testified against his girlfriend. He could be going home a free man as early as 2022.

That arbitrary and capricious way that the state decides who lives and who dies is one of the many arguments against capitol punishment. The question of redemption -- whether the life of a murderer can still bring value to society -- is a tougher one, and yet that is the one that Francis challenged America to contemplate.

And here's another problem: America has sent at least 155 men and women to Death Row, and actually killed some more, who did not commit the crime they were accused of. Incredibly, some are now questioning whether an innocent man is about to be put to death in Oklahoma -- a state that hasn't exactly brought glory upon itself in the execution department lately.

Richard Glossip's case starts out similar to the Kelly Gissendaner matter. Like in that case, Glossip didn't actually kill  his co-worker Barry Van Treese -- someone else did, a man named Justin Sneed. Also similar to the Georgia prosecution, Sneed was spared the death penalty after he testified that Glossip told him to commit the murder. But unlike Gissendaner, Glossip has long maintained his innocence -- and there's reason to believe him, or at least harbor reasonable doubt. There's zero physical evidence linking Glossip, a video shows a detective coaching Sneed in his confession, and Sneed's story has since changed a lot over the years. Sneed's daughter wrote state officials implying her dad might recant.

As always happens in these cases, the DA for Oklahoma City, rather than listening to growing mound of evidence that seems to exonerate Glossip, accuses the convicted man of a "bull(bleep) PR campaign." Still, Glossip has received a tiny sliver of good news. Tonight,  Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin gave Glossip a 37-day reprieve, not to debate his innocence but because of questions about the lethal injection cocktail in the state that tortured a man in one of its last executions.

Will America come to its senses in the next 37 days? Don't count on it. Despite growing public concern about capital punishment, America remains a pariah among civilized nations -- and instead in the company of such proud lands as Saudi Arabia, Iran and China -- when it comes to state-sanctioned murder. Pope Francis didn't get the job done, apparently. So I can't even guess who God -- who once said, and I'm paraphrasing here, thou shall not kill -- has warming up in the bullpen.