Tennessee Death Row Killer Survives Two Doses of Lethal Injection After Supreme Court Clears the Way for Her Execution

Tennessee tried and failed Wednesday night to execute Christa Pike, who would have been the first woman put to death in the state in more than 200 years. Two doses of pentobarbital did not kill her, and she was transported to a hospital.Officials followed the state’s protocol of two 50-milliliter syringes of the drug, both of which Ms. Pike received. Witnesses said the second dose was in by 8:26 p.m. and that Ms. Pike was still snoring more than 40 minutes after it. At 8:53 p.m., media witnesses were escorted out. A Department of Correction spokesperson, Dorinda Carter, told them she could not immediately say what had happened.According to one account, Ms. Pike told the room she was at peace and ready to be free, then closed with, “This is a happy day.”A Day of ReversalsThe night capped hours of whiplash. A three-judge panel of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals voted 2-1 to stay the execution about an hour before its 10 a.m. start. It said it needed more time to resolve the issues her lawyers had raised, including claims that the sexual abuse and neglect she suffered as a child was never adequately weighed at sentencing.Ms. Pike had lost nearly everything else that week. The Tennessee Supreme Court denied a stay September 24, Governor Lee declined to intervene Monday, and the United States Supreme Court rejected a separate bid Tuesday.The state then went back to the nation’s highest court, which vacated the Sixth Circuit’s stay at about 5:50 p.m. Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented. The state resumed its preparations, and the injection began around 8 p.m.Lawyers Call It AgonyLate Wednesday, Ms. Pike’s lawyers filed emergency motions with the Supreme Court, the Sixth Circuit, and a federal district court. They argued she was in “unnecessary agony” and that continuing violated the ban on cruel and unusual punishment. They also asked for an order directing prison staff to perform life-saving measures. Ms. Pike’s legal team said she was then moved to an off-site medical facility. The Sun could not immediately confirm her condition.Her attorneys had warned before the execution that the state’s protocol would be torturous given her medical and psychological conditions, including post-traumatic stress disorder. A group of United Nations human rights experts had urged Tennessee to commute the sentence. In a letter before the execution, Ms. Pike wrote that she was not afraid to die, only “nervous about the process.”Governor Pauses the Death ChamberMr. Lee, a Republican, halted executions for the rest of the year after the failed attempt, according to reports. Whether and when Tennessee may try again is unsettled, and the Sixth Circuit had not finished weighing Ms. Pike’s claims when the Supreme Court stepped in.Ms. Pike was 18 in 1995 when she and two friends led Colleen Slemmer, a 19-year-old classmate at a Job Corps center in Knoxville, into the woods near the University of Tennessee campus. They tortured and killed her in what has been described as a jealous rage. Ms. Pike kept a piece of her skull. She and an accomplice, Tadaryl Shipp, confessed and were convicted of first-degree murder in 1996. Mr. Shipp received life with the possibility of parole, and Ms. Pike was sentenced to death.Ms. Slemmer’s mother, May Martinez, drove from Florida to Tennessee to see the sentence carried out. Nearly 31 years after her daughter’s death, she is still waiting for an ending.Justice Sotomayor wrote that the Court’s decision gave the state the speed it wanted at the cost of ordinary review. “I see no reason to short-circuit the ordinary process of appellate review,” she writes in her dissent.

Tennessee Death Row Killer Survives Two Doses of Lethal Injection After Supreme Court Clears the Way for Her Execution

Tennessee Death Row Killer Survives Two Doses of Lethal Injection After Supreme Court Clears the Way for Her Execution

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