Christa Pike awake and speaking after failed Tennessee execution, lawyers say
Story By Staff Reporter
Death row inmate Christa Pike is conscious and speaking, her lawyers say. She survived a failed execution attempt in Tennessee last week.
Pike remains in critical care
Pike, 50, still needs critical medical care in hospital. Her lawyers said Tuesday that she is “handcuffed and shackled to the bed.” Her prognosis is unclear. “At a minimum, we expect a long recovery,” they said.
Pike stayed unconscious for days while medical staff cleared the injected chemical from her body. Experts and her legal team call her recovery unprecedented.
Two injections failed
Tennessee officials injected Pike twice with pentobarbital last Wednesday. Neither dose killed her. Staff took her to hospital. Experts believe she is the only person to survive a lethal injection.
Experts react
Deborah Denno, a criminologist and professor at Fordham Law School, said she was “absolutely astonished” that Pike is speaking. Denno told the BBC that seven other prisoners have survived execution attempts. In those cases, executioners could not inject anything into the veins.
Pike is the only person who actually received a toxin, Denno said. The team followed the full process, and it still failed. “This has never happened before,” she said.
Steven Hale, a journalist for the Nashville Banner, watched the attempt. He told Radio 4’s Today programme that he knew of no “exact precedent.” He also asked what the case means for the victim’s family. They have waited 30 years for what officials promised as justice.
Officials stay silent on next steps
Authorities have not said whether they will try again. They have not explained what went wrong. Governor Bill Lee has suspended all executions for the rest of the year. The state’s head of prisons said over the weekend that he plans to resign.
The 1995 murder
Pike was 18 when she and her boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, beat, tortured and killed 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in 1995. The three had met at a job training camp for troubled teens.
Shipp was 17, so he avoided the death penalty because he was legally a minor. He remains in prison.
Lawyers seek clemency
Pike’s lawyers will appear in a Nashville court on Wednesday. They also plan a news conference outside the court. They again urge Lee to commute her sentence to life in prison without parole.
Doctor warns of ongoing risks
Dr Joel Zivot, an anaesthesiologist, advises Pike’s defence team. He told the BBC that nearly everyone who receives a lethal injection dies. Pike is the exception.
Zivot said many unknowns remain. He pointed to how much pentobarbital entered her system, what her blood levels were afterwards, and what her recovery will look like. “I would not, in any way, say at this point that all the big risks are behind her,” he said.
Zivot had earlier said that normal circulation of the two doses would have “surely” killed her. He now suggests the drug likely spread through the tissue under her skin instead.
Her lawyers had warned that her blood-clotting condition, thrombocytosis, and her small veins created a risk of “unnecessary” pain. They now say she has suffered “severe damage” to her arms.
Botched executions are not new
The Death Penalty Information Center tracks failed executions. It found that more than a third of US executions in 2022 were botched or highly problematic.
Lethal injection failures usually happen when staff struggle to reach a vein. In every case the centre has documented, the failure came before staff could give the drugs.
The most recent tracked failure happened earlier this year, also in Tennessee. Staff could not find a vein for Tony Carruthers in May. The governor granted him a one-year reprieve. Carruthers faces execution for kidnapping and murdering three people in 1994.
Reporting based on original coverage by BBC.
