Christa Pike execution halted at last minute by US appeals court

The 6th Circuit Court of Appeals granted a last-minute stay for Christa Pike on Wednesday, hours before she was set to become the first woman executed in Tennessee in over 200 years.

US appeals court halts Christa Pike execution hours before it was due to take place

The U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals granted an 11th-hour stay of execution for Christa Pike in Nashville on Wednesday morning, shortly before she was scheduled to die by lethal injection, nashvillebanner.com reports. Pike, 50, would have been the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than two centuries.

The stay came despite near-total exhaustion of Pike's legal options. The U.S. Supreme Court had denied a late Tuesday appeal, and both the Tennessee Supreme Court and Governor Bill Lee had previously allowed the execution to proceed.

The motion filed by Pike's attorneys was not a new habeas petition. Instead, it centred on a contention that the state had reversed its position regarding her childhood abuse. "She states that the State recently reversed its litigation position that she is a liar who fabricated sexual abuse," the appellate court order reads. "Pike contends that the State's concession of her history of child sexual abuse and rape 'erodes the foundation' of her state court proceedings."

During a special master hearing in August, a state lawyer had acknowledged: "The state does not dispute the terrible things that Miss Pike suffered. I think everybody in this courtroom wishes that those things had never happened to Miss Pike."

The appellate court determined that a stay was necessary to resolve the issue before proceeding. Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti's office said it would appeal the ruling. "We will continue to advocate for the lawfully imposed sentence as the courts work through this technical issue," the office said in a statement. "It is common in capital cases for the defense to raise last-minute objections following decades of litigation in numerous courts. We are asking the Supreme Court of the United States to lift the stay."

Sentenced at 19 for a murder committed at 18

Pike was sentenced to death in 1996 for the 1995 murder of Colleen Slemmer. Pike, then 18, along with her then-boyfriend Tadaryl Shipp, 17, and a friend named Shadolla Peterson, tortured and killed Slemmer in the woods. Pike had become convinced that Slemmer, a fellow Job Corps classmate, was attempting to steal Shipp from her. Shipp was sentenced to life in prison; Peterson turned state witness and avoided jail time.

Police found a fragment of Slemmer's skull in Pike's jacket pocket. Two Job Corps classmates told investigators that Pike had bragged to them about the murder and the trophy she had kept.

Protesters gather outside, balloons prepared

On Wednesday morning, the protester area outside the facility drew far larger crowds than usual — more than 60 people on the side opposing the execution, roughly double the typical number, and at least 15 on the pro-execution side, a side that often draws only a single person. The case also attracted a significantly larger media presence, reflecting national interest.

Among those on the pro-death penalty side were a mother and daughter who had travelled from Manitoba, Canada, having followed Pike's case for three decades. Several Tennesseans on that side acknowledged the severity of Pike's childhood trauma but maintained the sentence should be carried out.

"It wasn't right," said one protester, referring to Pike's upbringing, "but this still needs to happen."

"People over there," said one man, gesturing to the opposing side of the fence, "if their 19-year-old daughter was almost decapitated and had a pentagram drawn on her chest, they'd feel a lot different."

Former fellow inmate speaks of Pike's transformation

Amanda Buck travelled from the Tri Cities, arriving at the protest site at 3 a.m. She spent a decade in prison on drug charges and knew Pike personally. Early in her sentence, Buck was sent to segregation, where she first encountered Pike. She said Pike ensured she had food, pens, and paper. Pike later gave her a tattoo through the fence that separated them — chikara, the Japanese kanji character meaning "strength."

Pike eventually sent Buck her case files, which included crime scene photographs. "It was some morbid stuff," Buck said.

Buck said Pike initially did not express remorse, but that over time she guided her toward confronting what she had done. Buck stayed in segregation for two years in an effort to reach her. According to Buck, Pike eventually arrived at genuine remorse — for the killing and for having taken part of Slemmer's skull as a keepsake. She also described Pike's later turn toward Buddhism.

"She was a child, misled, trying to fit in," Buck said of Pike. "I don't feel like she was the ringleader. I don't feel like it was fair the way the sentencing went."

Pike herself wrote in her clemency petition: "It took me numerous years to even realize 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."

Buck, who has since rebuilt her own life after leaving prison, said she recently messaged Pike to thank her. She now has a tattoo on her forearm that reads "Christa."

Buck and a friend had planned to release 31 purple balloons — one for each year Pike spent on death row, all in Pike's favourite colour — at the scheduled time of execution. They were not permitted to bring the balloons into the fenced protest area, and said they planned instead to release them at Love Circle, possibly as a celebration of the stay.

Source: Google News MT — Crime (en)