Tennessee's execution of Christa Pike fails after two lethal doses — she's taken to hospital alive

Tennessee's attempt to execute Christa Pike on Wednesday night collapsed in a way that a death penalty expert called singular and unparalleled: Pike, 50, received two full doses of the lethal drug pentobarbital, remained alive and loudly snoring, and was taken by ambulance from Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville to a hospital — her condition as of early Thursday still undisclosed by the state.

When curtains parted at 7:27 p.m., media witnesses watching from an observation room could see Pike bound to a gurney. She was awake. At one point she raised her head and asked prison officials whether her arm was supposed to feel the way it did. Witnesses reported that a second dose of pentobarbital had been given by 8:26 p.m. From behind the closed curtain, audible snoring from Pike persisted until the microphone was switched off at 8:53 p.m. and media witnesses were led out.

Her federal public defenders filed an emergency motion to the U.S. Supreme Court late Wednesday saying Pike was in 'unnecessary agony' and that the state was violating her right to be executed free of cruel and unusual punishment. The attorneys further contended that the Department of Correction had an obligation to begin lifesaving measures, arguing in their filing that 'failure to provide such care constitutes deliberate indifference to legitimate, serious medical needs.' Similar motions were submitted to the Sixth Circuit and district court simultaneously.

Carrying out a lawfully imposed sentence is among the State's most serious responsibilities, and the people of Tennessee expect it to be done in a manner that is not only legal and constitutional, but is effective.— Gov. Bill Lee

Lee announced he has ordered 'a comprehensive, third-party review to determine exactly what occurred' and that no remaining scheduled execution will take place this year. In a statement, the Tennessee Department of Correction maintained that it 'followed every step of the State's lawful, established execution protocol approved by the Attorney General's Office.' Under that protocol, a second set of drug syringes is to be used if the inmate remains alive after the first — though the document provides no guidance on what should happen if the person is still living after the second set as well.

Robin M. Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, described what Pike experienced as 'singular and unparalleled.' Seven other people have survived medical problems when an execution team failed to access a vein, but according to Maher, no one has previously remained alive after actually receiving the drugs used in a lethal injection.

Wednesday was the second time this year Tennessee failed to carry out an execution. The lethal injection of Tony Carruthers — found guilty of kidnapping and killing three people in 1994 — was abandoned in May after execution staff spent more than an hour unable to insert an IV.

Pike's execution had already been a legal rollercoaster on Wednesday alone. She was originally scheduled to die at 10 a.m. With an hour to go, a divided Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, voting 2-1, granted a stay on the grounds that more time was needed to assess whether Pike's claims of childhood sexual abuse had been adequately considered at sentencing. The state's attorney general appealed, arguing the last-minute halt traumatized the victim's family and rewarded 'abusive delay tactics.' Later in the day, the U.S. Supreme Court's conservative majority vacated the stay without explanation, clearing the way for the evening attempt. Writing in dissent and joined by the court's two other liberal members, Justice Sonia Sotomayor argued that the ruling 'unnecessarily prevents that court from giving due consideration to Pike's claim.'

Pike was convicted alongside her boyfriend for the 1995 fatal stabbing and beating of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, a classmate at a job training facility in Knoxville. Pike was 18 at the time. Widespread attention followed in part because a pentagram had been cut into Slemmer's body, feeding anxieties about Satan worship that were common during the so-called satanic panic era of the 1980s and 1990s. Although Pike does not dispute that she carried out the killing, those who advocate on her behalf contend that the state should account for her age, her mental illness, and her reported history of severe sexual abuse — circumstances they maintain were never placed before the jury.

It is inconceivable that in the 21st century, the criminal justice system is poised to execute a survivor of rape and child sexual abuse whose jury never had the opportunity to consider those facts in weighing the defendant's moral culpability.— Pike's attorneys

Had the execution succeeded, Pike would have been the first woman put to death in Tennessee in more than 200 years. Instead, the state faces an uncharted legal and procedural situation: a living inmate who has already received two full doses of a drug designed to kill, with no protocol governing what comes next.

Why it matters — The failure raises immediate constitutional questions about whether the state can attempt a third execution and sets up a legal confrontation with no established precedent in American death penalty history.

Reported by thehill.com, nytimes.com, cnn.com, tennessean.com, nashvillescene.com