Failed lethal injection leaves Tennessee death row inmate on ventilator
Christa Pike remains unconscious in hospital after a botched execution attempt in Tennessee. Governor Bill Lee has halted further executions pending a review.
Tennessee execution of Christa Pike goes wrong, inmate hospitalised
Convicted murderer Christa Pike is unconscious and on a ventilator in a Nashville-area hospital after a failed lethal injection execution in Tennessee, afp.com reports, citing a court filing submitted Friday by her lawyers.
Prison officials administered two doses of the highly toxic drug pentobarbital to Pike on Wednesday in connection with her conviction for the 1995 murder of Colleen Slemmer. Witnesses reported that the 50-year-old remained awake longer than expected and was later heard "loudly snoring" before an ambulance transferred her to a nearby hospital.
"She is intubated, on a ventilator, and remains unconscious," her lawyer Luke Ihnen wrote in a filing with a Tennessee court on Thursday evening. Ihnen added that medics were "working to save Ms. Pike's life" after she arrived at hospital with both arms "swollen, burned, and blistered."
In a separate filing with a federal appeals court, Pike's legal team stated that when the execution went awry and they sought a court order to halt it, state attorneys argued that the department of corrections "had no obligation to render life-saving care" to Pike.
Slemmer's mother, May Martinez — who travelled from Florida and was among the execution witnesses — told local television station WJXX: "All I wanted was justice." Martinez said the "state owes me a big apology" and that it had failed her family.
The Tennessee Department of Corrections said it "followed every step of the state's lawful, established execution protocol." Nevertheless, Republican Governor Bill Lee, who had previously denied Pike clemency, announced a halt to all further executions through the end of the year pending a review.
Pike's case is the second failed execution in Tennessee in 2025. The state suspended the lethal injection of Tony Carruthers in May after medical staff were unable to locate a vein.
Pike's lawyers had argued she deserved clemency given her young age and mental health condition at the time of Slemmer's killing, as well as a history of childhood sexual assault and post-traumatic stress disorder. Lawyer Randy Spivey said earlier this week: "After having endured solitary confinement for more than 20 years and a full attempt to kill her by lethal injection, Christa has endured punishment greater than any other person in the history of the American death penalty. The governor must commute Christa's sentence now."
Robin Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, told The New York Times: "This event is the worst we've seen and unlike any other botched execution in the modern era."
US President Donald Trump questioned how such an execution could fail, telling reporters it "shouldn't be very difficult." UN human rights chief Volker Türk urged Tennessee not to make a further attempt to execute Pike.
Had the drugs proved fatal, Pike would have been the first woman executed by Tennessee in more than two centuries. Since 1976, only 18 women have been executed across the United States, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
Source: Times of Malta