US Supreme Court clears way for execution of Tennessee death row woman
The US Supreme Court overturned a last-minute stay, allowing Tennessee to execute Christa Pike, 50, convicted of murder in 1996.
Supreme Court lifts stay for Tennessee's first female execution in over 200 years
The US Supreme Court has cleared the way for the execution of Christa Pike, 50, making her the first woman to be put to death in Tennessee in more than two centuries, bbc.com reports.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a conservative member of the court, granted an application Wednesday evening to vacate a stay of execution that had been issued by a lower appeals court roughly an hour before Pike was due to die. No explanation was provided in the order.
The three liberal justices — Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson — dissented. Sotomayor wrote that the ruling allowed Tennessee to execute Pike before her pending legal challenges to her conviction "can be properly considered." She added that "Tennessee's desire to expedite Pike's execution by a few days or even weeks cannot outweigh her 'fundamental interest in [her] own life.'"
Pike was sentenced to death in 1996 for the murder of Colleen Slemmer. She was 18 at the time when she and her then-boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, beat, tortured and killed the 19-year-old, whom they had met at a job training programme for troubled teenagers.
Earlier on Wednesday, judges from the Sixth Circuit Appeals Court had paused the execution, saying they needed more time to consider the arguments in Pike's case. Tennessee's attorney general subsequently asked the Supreme Court to overrule that decision.
Pike's lawyers argued that the state had for years claimed in court that she had fabricated allegations of childhood sexual abuse. However, at a recent hearing concerning her execution method, the state indicated it no longer disputed that she had suffered sexual abuse and rape. Her legal team contended that earlier federal court rulings may have been influenced by the state's prior position, and sought to have her motion returned to a district court for further review.
The Supreme Court's latest ruling arrived shortly before 18:00 local time. Tennessee's execution order was set to expire at midnight; had time run out, the Tennessee Supreme Court would have been required to set a new execution date, according to the Associated Press.
It was the second time in two days that the Supreme Court had authorised the execution to proceed. 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.
Source: Google News IE — Crime (en)