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Christa Pike's attorneys make major request to the state after questions over what happens next
Christa Pike’s lawyers have strongly urged authorities in Tennessee to amend one major aspect of her punishment following the failed execution attempt last Wednesday, which saw her rushed to hospital.
Pike, who was set to become the first woman in the state of Tennessee to be executed in over 200 years, survived two doses of the lethal injection.
Pike's lawyers' major request
The convicted murderer has since been left hospitalized, unconscious, and on a ventilator, leaving her lawyers to make one particular request.
Her lawyer, Stephen Ferrell, told CBS that Pike’s condition remains critical and that doctors are still trying to remove pentobarbital, the lethal drug administered during the execution, from her body.
He claimed that it is not yet known whether she will regain consciousness, and even if she does, she may be unable to take part in legal proceedings for some time
“The least that could happen now is that we at least take death off the table and start looking for what the future could be for her,” Ferrell said.
He added that Pike’s legal team is “certainly willing to discuss that with the governor, with whoever could make that decision.”
The lawyers want a commutation partly because inmates who survive botched executions have historically faced renewed execution attempts, and in Pike’s case, the failed execution may have left her with life-changing defects, with reports suggesting she may have sustained brain and organ damage as a result.
After the failed execution, Tennessee’s corrections commissioner stepped down, and Gov. Bill Lee canceled the state’s remaining scheduled execution for the year.
Lee ordered an outside review to determine what went wrong, while saying that, based on what officials knew, the Department of Correction had “followed exactly the protocol as outlined.”
Pike’s lawyers had warned before the execution that she was anxious about the process. After it failed, Ferrell said: “All of this was predicted, and the court did nothing.”
Pike's brutal murder of Slemmer
Pike was convicted of brutally murdering her former classmate, 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, in 1995, after being convinced that Slemmer was interested in her then-boyfriend.
Then 18, Pike was sentenced to death, while her accomplice and boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, was handed life imprisonment with the possibility of parole due to his age.
Slemmer was beaten, cut, and disfigured, and was found with a satanic symbol carved into her chest, as well as a piece of her skull missing, which Pike reportedly kept.
While Pike’s lawyers have conscientiously contested the death penalty in her case, citing several medical conditions as their reasoning, their last-ditch clemency petition was denied, with the execution going ahead as planned by the authorities.