Christa Pike execution fails: What next when a lethal injection is botched?
Also reported by Newsweek
Summary
Christa Pike, a 50-year-old woman on death row in Tennessee, was given two doses of a lethal injection but was still alive afterward and had to be taken to the hospital. Her execution was carried out after the Supreme Court overturned a last-minute federal court stay.Key Facts
- Christa Pike was scheduled to be executed in Tennessee, the first woman in over 200 years in that state.
- Two doses of the lethal injection drug pentobarbital failed to kill her.
- Pike was taken to the hospital because her heart was still beating after the execution attempt.
- The execution went ahead after the US Supreme Court cancelled a federal appeals court stay just an hour before the scheduled time.
- Pike was convicted in 1996 for the 1995 murder of Colleen Slemmer, a young woman she considered a romantic rival.
- Pike committed the crime as a teenager and was sentenced to death, while her boyfriend received life in prison due to his age at the time.
- Human rights experts criticized the botched execution as inhumane and called for the death penalty to be abolished.
- Pike’s lawyers highlighted her history of childhood abuse and argued she had changed over the years.
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