US3 min(s) read
Published 11:27 13 Aug 2026 GMT
Lawyers for death row inmate Christa Pike have suggested an unusual alternative to lethal injection as they challenge the state’s planned method of execution.
Pike’s legal team is arguing that injecting the execution drugs through a smaller vein in her arm could cause unnecessary pain because she has difficult-to-access veins and a blood condition.
They have proposed using a central line placed in a larger vein, a procedure normally carried out by doctors, as well as another alternative not deployed in the state for over a century.
The arguments were presented during a hearing before Senior Judge Mark Ward, who has been tasked with examining Pike’s health and the possible methods of carrying out her execution before submitting a report to the Tennessee Supreme Court.
Pike’s lawyers argue the condition could make lethal injection more difficult and potentially worsen her experience.
Emergency medicine expert Dr. Scott Goldstein was also called by the defense to discuss the challenges of establishing an IV line.
Much of his nearly two hours on the stand, however, focused on the proposed use of hanging.
Pike and her lawyer have offered hanging as an alternative because Tennessee law requires her to identify an alternative execution method if she objects to lethal injection.
She has the option of electrocution but does not want to be executed that way. Other Tennessee death row inmates have selected the electric chair in recent years rather than lethal injection.
Goldstein acknowledged that he had never personally witnessed or participated in a "judicial hanging." He instead relied on medical knowledge about the effects of hanging, including cases involving attempted suicide.
He told the court that if a particular vertebra near the base of the neck were fractured, death could potentially occur immediately.
The judge and prosecutors questioned some of the medical literature Goldstein relied upon. Ward ultimately said he would give the testimony whatever weight he believed it deserved.
Pike was convicted for the January 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer.
According to the case against her, Pike and her then-boyfriend, 17-year-old Tadaryl Shipp, lured Slemmer to a secluded area of the University of Tennessee Agricultural Campus under the belief that Slemmer was interested in Shipp.
Pike, who was 18 at the time, and Shipp repeatedly stabbed Slemmer before carving a pentagram into her chest and beating her with a piece of asphalt.
Pike later took a piece of Slemmer’s skull as a souvenir and showed it to some acquaintances the following day. She eventually confessed to police after briefly returning to the scene.
She has been awaiting the death penalty for over 30 years.
