Christa Pike execution halted after two lethal injections fail in Tennessee

Tennessee death row inmate Christa Pike was hospitalised after surviving two lethal injections. The US Supreme Court had earlier cleared the execution to proceed.

Tennessee inmate hospitalised after botched execution by lethal injection

Tennessee death row inmate Christa Pike, 50, was taken to hospital on Wednesday after she remained alive following two administrations of pentobarbital during her scheduled execution at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville, according to thehill.com.

Her legal team filed an emergency motion to halt the execution while it was under way, stating: "Ms Pike has lost consciousness and still has a heartbeat and is audibly snoring." One of her attorneys confirmed to the BBC that Pike was "being provided life-saving measures" in hospital. The state of Tennessee had not issued any comment at the time of reporting.

The execution proceeded after the US Supreme Court overturned a reprieve that had been granted by a lower court earlier that day. Justice Brett Kavanaugh vacated the stay of execution without providing any written explanation. The court's three liberal justices — Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson — dissented from the decision.

In her dissent, Justice Sotomayor wrote that the ruling cleared the way for Tennessee to execute Pike before her pending legal challenges to her conviction "can be properly considered." She added: "Tennessee's desire to expedite Pike's execution by a few days or even weeks cannot outweigh her 'fundamental interest in [her] own life.'"

The state's execution order was set to expire at midnight.

Medical assessment after the failed procedure

Dr Joel Zivot, a professor at the Emory University School of Medicine and an expert on physician participation in lethal injection, said Pike likely never achieved a sufficient blood level of pentobarbital to cause apnoea and cardiovascular failure. "It's very possible that as a consequence of the delay of the beginning of resuscitation she will have a brain injury," Zivot said.

Earlier on Wednesday, judges from the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit had paused the execution, saying they needed more time to consider the arguments in Pike's case. The Supreme Court's intervention overruled that pause. It was the second time in two days that the Supreme Court had cleared the way for the execution — on Tuesday, the justices had already rejected a separate appeal from Pike. Tennessee's governor also denied a clemency request from Pike earlier in the week.

Legal dispute over Pike's background

Pike's lawyers argued that for years Tennessee had claimed in court that she had fabricated allegations of childhood sexual abuse. At a more recent hearing concerning her execution method, however, the state said it no longer disputed that she had suffered sexual abuse and rape. Her legal team contended that earlier federal court rulings may have been shaped by the state's original position, and asked the appeals court to return the matter to district court.

The 1995 murder and its aftermath

Pike was sentenced to death in 1996 for the murder of Colleen Slemmer. Pike was 18 at the time of the killing; she and her then-boyfriend Tadaryl Shipp beat, tortured and killed 19-year-old Slemmer, whom they had met at a job training programme for troubled teens. The 1995 murder drew intense media coverage in Knoxville after Slemmer's body was found with an inverted pentagram carved into her chest. Pike has denied carving the symbol herself.

Before the killing, Pike had accused Slemmer of insulting her and attempting to steal her boyfriend. Two fellow residents at the camp later testified that Pike had boasted about the murder both before and after it occurred, and had shown them a piece of Slemmer's skull.

In her clemency petition, Pike stated that she had intended to beat Slemmer but not to kill her. "I was a mentally ill 18-year-old kid," she said. "It took me numerous years to even realise the gravity of what I'd done. Even more to accept how many lives I affected. I took the life of someone's child, sister, friend. It sickens me now to think I had the ability to commit such a crime."

At the time of her incarceration, Pike was identified by the Tennessee Department of Corrections as the youngest person then on death row, at age 21. She remains the only woman currently serving a death sentence in Tennessee.

Victim's mother responds

Colleen Slemmer's mother, May Martinez, told the Associated Press she has waited decades to see the sentence carried out. "Every time I think about it, I think about Colleen feeling that pain and trying to get up and run," Martinez said. She and her husband travelled from Florida to Tennessee to witness the execution, with a support group helping to fund the trip. "Not a day goes by, or a minute goes by that I do not think about Colleen. Holidays are the worst," she said.

Since 1976, when the Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment, only 18 women have been executed in the United States, compared to 1,663 men — roughly one percent of all US executions.

Source: Google News MT — Crime (en)