US Supreme Court lifts stay for Christa Pike execution in Tennessee

The US Supreme Court cleared the way for Tennessee to execute Christa Pike, 50, overturning a last-minute stay. She was convicted of murdering classmate Colleen Slemmer in 1995.

Supreme Court overturns stay, Tennessee to execute Christa Pike

The US Supreme Court has overturned a last-minute stay and cleared the path for Tennessee to execute Christa Pike, 50, according to aljazeera.com — marking what would be the state's first execution of a woman in at least 200 years.

Pike had been scheduled to die by lethal injection on Wednesday morning at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville. Witnesses and media had already assembled at the prison when the 6th Circuit US Court of Appeals voted 2-1 to issue a stay, saying more time was needed to examine whether Pike's allegations of childhood sexual abuse had been fully considered during her sentencing.

The Supreme Court's conservative majority reversed that decision without explaining their order. The three liberal justices signed a dissent. Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that vacating the stay "unnecessarily prevents that court from giving due consideration to Pike's claim" and interfered with the 6th Circuit's handling of the case.

A spokesperson for the Tennessee Department of Correction confirmed the execution would proceed on Wednesday night, ahead of a midnight cut-off on the state's execution order.

The 1995 killing

Pike and her then-boyfriend Tadaryl Shipp were convicted of the fatal stabbing and beating of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in 1995. Slemmer was their classmate at a job training facility in Knoxville. Shipp, who was 17 at the time, received a life sentence with the possibility of parole. Pike, then 18, was the only one sentenced to death.

Tennessee's attorney general appealed to the Supreme Court immediately after the stay was issued, arguing that halting the execution at the last moment had traumatised Slemmer's family and rewarded what the office called "abusive delay tactics" by Pike's lawyers.

Pike's defence

Pike does not deny committing the killing. Her supporters argue the state should weigh her age at the time of the crime, her diagnosed mental illness, and her claims of severe sexual abuse, which she says began when she was a toddler.

"It is inconceivable that in the 21st century, the criminal justice system is poised to execute a survivor of rape and child sexual abuse whose jury never had the opportunity to consider those facts in weighing the defendant's moral culpability," her lawyers wrote in a court filing.

Following the killing, Pike was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder. In a clemency petition, she said she had only intended to fight Slemmer but killed her in a frenzied attack when she could not stop herself.

"I was a mentally ill 18-year-old kid. 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," Pike said in a statement.

Victim's family

Slemmer's mother, May Martinez, told The Associated Press she has waited decades for the sentence to be carried out. "Every time I think about it, I think about Colleen feeling that pain and trying to get up and run," Martinez said in a telephone interview.

Broader context

Tennessee has not executed a woman for at least 200 years, according to Robin M. Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, though Maher noted that older records can be incomplete. Since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, 18 women have been executed in the United States, representing approximately one percent of all executions carried out in that period, according to the centre.

Source: Google News IE — Crime (en)