Christa Pike survives Tennessee execution attempt; governor suspends executions for the year

Nashville, United States. Christa Pike, convicted of murdering a schoolmate three decades ago, survived Tennessee’s attempt to execute her by lethal injection late on Wednesday, prison officials said. The unsuccessful attempt would have been the state’s first execution of a woman in two centuries.

Medical treatment and legal response

Pike was taken from the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville to an off-site medical facility. Her condition was not immediately known, and it remained unclear what legal steps her lawyers or the state might take next.

During the execution attempt, Pike’s lawyers filed a federal court motion seeking to halt the procedure. The motion cited witnesses’ accounts that “executioners had injected both syringes of lethal injection chemicals and Pike is still alive and snoring,” NBC News reported.

Her lawyers and human rights experts had opposed the execution, citing her age at the time of the crime, her history of childhood sexual abuse and untreated mental illness.

State defends procedure as governor orders review

The Tennessee Department of Correction defended its handling of the execution.

“The Tennessee Department of Correction followed every step of the state’s lawful, established execution protocol approved by the Attorney General’s Office,” the agency said.

“The lethal injection chemical in the protocol has consistently been effective, and the protocol does not allow for additional procedures beyond what was carried out this evening. Christa Pike has been transported to an off-site medical facility,” it added.

Tennessee Governor Bill Lee, who denied Pike’s clemency petition on Monday, subsequently suspended all executions for the year and called for a “comprehensive, third-party review” of the execution attempt, according to the Nashville Tennessean.

It was Tennessee’s second failed execution attempt this year. In May, prison officials abandoned an attempt to execute a man convicted of murders after failing to find a suitable vein for the lethal injection.

Conviction and court ruling

Wednesday’s attempt came hours after the US Supreme Court lifted a last-minute lower-court stay, clearing the way for Pike, 50, to be executed for her role in the 1995 torture and beating death of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in Knoxville.

Pike was 18 in January 1995 when she, her 17-year-old boyfriend Tadaryl Shipp and a third companion lured Slemmer into a wooded area, where they tortured and killed her. Slemmer was their classmate at the Knoxville Job Corps vocational center.