Tennessee Halts First Execution of a Woman in Two Centuries Hours Before It Was Set To Begin

May Martinez drove from Florida to Tennessee to watch the woman who killed her daughter die. Instead, hours before a lethal injection was set to begin Wednesday at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution, a federal appeals court stopped it.The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ordered Christa Pike’s execution stayed “until further order,” according to theorder. The move came after a lower court found it lacked jurisdiction over a motion by Ms. Pike’s lawyers to reopen the denial of her federal habeas petition. The appeals court found a stay necessary to resolve the issues her attorneys raised properly.Had it gone forward, Ms. Pike, 50, would have been the first woman put to death in Tennessee in more than 200 years.Ms. Pike was 18 when she killed Ms. Slemmer, a 19-year-old classmate at a Job Corps center in Knoxville, in what has been depicted as a jealous rage. She and two friends led Ms. Slemmer into the woods near the University of Tennessee campus, where they tortured and killed her. Ms. Pike kept a piece of her skull.Ms. Pike and an accomplice, Tadaryl Shipp, both confessed and were convicted of first-degree murder in 1996. Mr. Shipp received life with the possibility of parole. Ms. Pike received a death sentence. She was later convicted of attempted murder for an assault on another inmate in 2001.The stay order Wednesday morning capped a week of losses for Ms. Pike’s team. The Tennessee Supreme Court denied a stay on September 24. Governor Bill Lee announced Monday he would not intervene. The United States Supreme Court rejected a late bid Tuesday.Her lawyers have argued that her childhood was marked by sexual abuse and neglect, that she was barely an adult at the time of the crime, and that the state’s lethal injection protocol would be torturous given her medical and psychological conditions, including post-traumatic stress disorder. A group of United Nations human rights experts urged Tennessee to commute the sentence.In a letter to NBC News, Ms. Pike wrote, “I am not afraid to die,” adding she was only “nervous about the process.” Her attorney credited the court for “recognizing the serious concerns” about the execution.The reprieve may not last. Legal observers note the nation’s highest courtcan still vacate a Sixth Circuit stay, as it did in 2018 on the eve of Edmund Zagorski’s execution in Tennessee. The appeals court has not said how long the stay will last.For Ms. Martinez, that means another stretch of waiting nearly 31 years after her daughter’s death. Days before the stay, she was clear about what she hoped the execution would bring.“Praying the state does the right thing and gives Colleen the justice she deserves,” she wrote earlier this week. “May the Lord be with us through this whole tragedy for the past 30 years. Just Colleen, we are with you all the time in your heart; we will never forget the pain you went through. We love you so much.”Ms. Pike’s lawyer did not immediately respond to the Sun’s request for further comment.

Tennessee Halts First Execution of a Woman in Two Centuries Hours Before It Was Set To Begin

Tennessee Halts First Execution of a Woman in Two Centuries Hours Before It Was Set To Begin

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