Tennessee death row inmate Christa Pike has been hospitalized after her heart continued to beat following two lethal injections during her execution, according to her lawyer. Her legal team filed an emergency motion to halt the execution, stating, "Ms Pike has lost consciousness and still has a heartbeat and is audibly snoring." One of her attorneys informed the BBC that Pike, 50, was receiving life-saving measures in the hospital after two doses of pentobarbital were administered.
As of now, there has been no comment from the state of Tennessee. Pike was sentenced to death in 1996 for the murder of Colleen Slemmer. The execution attempt occurred at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville around 20:00 local time on Wednesday night. Pike received two doses of pentobarbital, and the curtain in the witness room was closed twice, as reported by the Associated Press. Media were asked to leave at one point, according to the news agency.
Pike's legal team stated in a release to the Tennessean newspaper, "Tonight the State of Tennessee once again failed to carry out a lawful execution. We take no pleasure in being right, but the concerns raised by Ms Pike proved to be true: difficult vein access, blown veins, degraded pentobarbital, no emergency medical care available when things inevitably go wrong, all under a protocol that remains veiled in secrecy."
Pike's lawyers filed an emergency motion to stay her execution and provide medical care after the lethal injection was apparently unsuccessful. District Judge Clifton L Corker issued a ruling indicating that "medical personnel have begun to administer medical care as requested in the motion." Dr. Joel Zivot, a professor at Emory University School of Medicine, who was retained by Pike's legal team as a medical expert, stated that she likely did not achieve a sufficient blood level of pentobarbital to induce apnoea and cardiovascular failure during the execution attempt. He noted, "It's very possible that as a consequence of the delay of the beginning of resuscitation she will have a brain injury," in an email.
The execution proceeded after the US Supreme Court overturned a reprieve granted by a lower court on Wednesday morning. This was the second time in two days that the justices allowed Pike's death by lethal injection to move forward. Earlier that day, judges from the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit paused the execution, stating they needed more time to consider arguments in Pike's case.
Pike's lawyers argued that the jury did not have the opportunity to consider mitigating evidence of her documented history of childhood sexual abuse before sentencing her to death in 1996. The defense claimed that for years, the state of Tennessee had argued in court that she lied about being sexually abused as a child. However, at a recent hearing regarding her execution method, the state acknowledged that it did not dispute Pike's claims of suffering sexual abuse and rape.
Tennessee's governor denied a clemency request from Pike, who is the only woman on the state's death row. Pike was 18 when she and her then-boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, beat, tortured, and killed 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, whom they had met at a job training camp for troubled teens. In her clemency petition, Pike stated that she intended to beat Slemmer, not kill her, but was unable to "put the brakes on."
Pike expressed remorse, saying, "I was a mentally ill 18-year-old kid. It took me numerous years to even realize the gravity of what I'd done. Even more to accept how many lives I affected. I took the life of someone's child, sister, friend. It sickens me now to think I had the ability to commit such a crime."
The murder in 1995 generated significant media attention in Knoxville, Tennessee, after Colleen was found with an inverted pentagram carved into her chest. Pike has denied carving the symbol herself. Prior to the killing, Pike accused Colleen of insulting her and attempting to steal her then-boyfriend. Two other residents at the camp later testified that Pike had bragged about the murder before and after, showing them a piece of Colleen's skull.
Colleen Slemmer's mother, May Martinez, expressed her desire for the execution to proceed, stating she had waited decades to see Pike's sentence carried out. "Every time I think about it, I think about Colleen feeling that pain and trying to get up and run," Martinez told the Associated Press. She mentioned that a group helped raise funds for her and her husband to travel from Florida to Tennessee to witness the execution. "Not a day goes by, or a minute goes by that I do not think about Colleen. Holidays are the worst," Martinez added.
Since 1976, when the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty, only 18 women have been executed in the US, compared to 1,663 men, representing about 1% of all US executions.