US4 min(s) read
Published 15:55 12 Jun 2026 GMT
The only woman on Tennessee’s death row is challenging the state’s execution protocol.
In January, Christa Gail Pike, who was convicted of a brutal 1995 murder, filed a lawsuit against Tennessee officials arguing that the state’s planned use of lethal injection violates her constitutional rights and religious beliefs.
Pike is suing Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti, Tennessee Department of Correction Commissioner Frank Strada, and the wardens of Riverbend Maximum Security Prison and Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center.
Pike was convicted in 1996 alongside her boyfriend, Tiddell Shipp, and friend Shadolla Peterson for the murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in a case that became known locally as the "Job Corps Murder".
Both Pike and Slemmer were participants in a Knoxville job-training program for troubled teens. Prosecutors argued that Pike believed Slemmer was trying to steal her boyfriend.
According to court filings and trial testimony, Pike struck Slemmer with a piece of asphalt, dragged her into the woods, tortured her, and slit her throat with a box cutter.
Pike was also accused of keeping a piece of Slemmer’s skull as a souvenir after the killing.
She was sentenced to death and remains on death row nearly three decades later.
At the center of Pike’s lawsuit is Tennessee’s revised lethal injection protocol, which took effect in December 2024.
The state now uses a single drug, pentobarbital, to induce respiratory and cardiac arrest rather than the three-drug cocktail previously used between 2018 and 2020, per Nashville Banner.
The prisoner argues the protocol is unconstitutional and particularly dangerous because of what the lawsuit describes as her "unique medical conditions".
The filing claims lethal injection can trigger flash pulmonary edema, a condition that may create the sensation of drowning.
Per the document, Pike suffers from thrombocytopenia, a blood disorder, along with bipolar disorder, PTSD, and veins that make needle insertion difficult.
Her attorneys argue that the use of pentobarbital could cause an especially severe reaction.
The lawsuit alleges: "This is death by drowning on one's own blood," and that the execution method is "very likely to result in unnecessary and superadded pain and suffering, terror, and disgrace in violation of the United States Constitution and the Tennessee Constitution."
The death row inmate's attorneys also slammed what they describe as a lack of transparency surrounding the protocol.
The lawsuit claims the state's protocol is "plagued with the same issues that have marked botched executions for decades: secrecy, intentional omission, inattention to detail, and untrained and unlicensed prison personnel attempting to fill a medical role."
The filing further argues that Tennessee should have a plan in place and that life-saving medical procedures should be administered if death has not occurred within five minutes.
The challenge comes less than a year after Tennessee executed Byron Black in August 2025. Black, who had an implanted defibrillator, also challenged the state's protocol before his execution.
According to witnesses, Black reportedly groaned: "Oh, it's hurting so bad."
His attorney later claimed he had been "tortured" during the execution.
Pike's lawsuit also raises objections based on her faith.
Per the filing, the inmate is a practicing Buddhist, and an alternative-method requirement "violates her rights to conscience and/or to the free exercise of religion under the First Amendment."
The suit also states that proposing another method of execution conflicts with her "sincerely held religious beliefs against participating in any process leading to her own death."
In addition to this, the film claims restrictions on spiritual advisers during executions interfere with her ability to practice her religion.
As Pike's legal challenge moves through the courts, Slemmer's family has continued to call for the sentence to be carried out.
Her mother, May Martinez, has repeatedly said she wants justice for her daughter and hopes that no other parent experiences the pain her family has endured.
If Tennessee proceeds with the execution on September 30, Pike will become the first woman executed by the state since 1820, marking the first such execution in Tennessee in more than two centuries.
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