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Why Tennessee has to now keep Christa Pike alive in hospital after failing to execute her
On Wednesday, September 30, two doses of lethal injection failed to kill death row inmate Christa Pike, who had been on death row for 30 years, and the state is now required to keep her alive.
An hour before her initial scheduled execution time, Pike was granted a stay of execution, before the Supreme Court ruled that the killing could go ahead.
Pike, who was set to be the first woman to be killed on Tennessee’s death row in over 200 years, survived two botched attempts at administering the lethal injection.
According to reports, even after two syringes of potent poison pentobarbital were administered, she had “not lost consciousness and still has a heartbeat,” and was “audibly snoring”.
Since that day, Pike's attorneys say she has been in critical condition and treated in a hospital, as a spokesperson for the Tennessee Department of Corrections confirmed she was “transported to an off-site medical facility”.
Why are officials now fighting to save her life?
Despite the attempts to end her life, authorities have now been tasked with keeping her alive due to a flaw in the death penalty protocol.
The strict set of guidelines advises the state to administer a second injection if the first dose doesn’t result in death. However, the protocol doesn’t tell the state what to do if a second dose doesn’t work.
A decision had to be made on what to do with the critically ill Pike, and within seconds the medical professionals in the room switched from attempting to kill her to trying to save her life.
Robin Maher, the executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, told News 2: “I don’t think prison officials had a choice.
"Both of the doses of lethal injection drugs had failed to kill Christa Pike, and so they really were left with someone who was now gravely ill but not dead.
"They had no choice but to call for lifesaving assistance and to move her to the hospital.”
He also noted that under the 8th Amendment of the US Constitution, authorities are legally required to protect inmates from cruel and unusual punishment.
Following the failed execution attempt, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee suspended all remaining scheduled executions this year, ordering a 'comprehensive, third-party review to determine exactly what occurred'.
Why was Christa sentenced to death?
Pike, 50, was just 18 when she was sentenced to spend the rest of her life on death row after she tortured and killed fellow student Colleen Slemmer, 19, with the help of her boyfriend in 1995.
The death row inmate’s legal team fought until the last moment to have her sentence reduced to life imprisonment, citing her childhood trauma involving sexual and physical abuse, neglect, and domestic violence, which was never addressed by prosecutors during her initial trial three decades ago.
Christa was sexually abused between the ages of two and five. It also noted that she was allegedly raped by a 37-year-old neighbor who received a suspended sentence when she was just 11.
Christa’s longstanding legal team argues that excluding details about her past abuse stopped jurors from fully understanding that they were prosecuting a troubled teenager, not a heinous villain.