Murderer Christa Pike unconscious, on ventilator after botched execution, lawyers tell court: 'Punishment greater than any other person'
&imwidth=600&imheight=450&format=webp&quality=medium "Murderer Christa Pike unconscious, on ventilator after botched execution, lawyers tell court: 'Punishment greater than any other person'")
This handout picture dated January 12, 2023 provided by the Tennessee Department of Correction shows convicted US murderer Christa Pike. Photograph: (AFP)
Christa Pike remains critically ill and unconscious on a ventilator after surviving a botched lethal injection in Tennessee. Her lawyers say "Christa endured punishment greater than any other person in the history of the American death penalty" and that doctors are working to save her life.
Christa Pike, the convicted Tennessee murderer who survived a botched lethal injection on Wednesday (Sep 30), is unconscious and on a ventilator after receiving two doses of pentobarbital, her lawyers said in a court filing Friday (Oct 02). Pike, 50, was sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of her classmate Colleen Slemmer. She was injected with two doses of the lethal drug, but witnesses reported that she remained awake longer than expected and was later heard loudly snoring. She was subsequently taken by ambulance to a nearby hospital.
As of Thursday evening, Pike remained critically ill at a Nashville-area hospital, according to her lawyer Luke Ihnen.
"She is intubated, on a ventilator, and remains unconscious," Ihnen wrote, adding that medical staff were working to save her life. He said she arrived with both arms "swollen, burned, and blistered."
Also read | Trump slams Tennessee for murderer Christa Pike’s failed lethal injection execution: ‘Should be easy to do’
Lawyers allege execution protocol left questions over medical care
In a separate filing with a federal appeals court, Pike's legal team said that when they sought to halt the execution after it went wrong, state attorneys argued that the Department of Corrections "had no obligation to render life-saving care" to her. The Tennessee Department of Corrections has meanwhile maintained that it "followed every step of the state's lawful, established execution protocol."
Pike's execution followed a day of legal wrangling. Her lawyers had sought clemency, citing her age at the time of the killing, mental health issues, childhood sexual assault and post-traumatic stress disorder.
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Tennessee governor halts executions pending review
Tennessee Governor Bill Lee, a Republican who previously denied Pike clemency, has halted further executions through the end of the year while a review is conducted.
Notably, Pike's was the second failed execution in the state this year. In May, officials halted the lethal injection of Tony Carruthers after medical staff were unable to find a vein.
Pike's lawyer Randy Spivey has called for her sentence to be commuted, saying she had "endured punishment greater than any other person in the history of the American death penalty".
Robin Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, told The New York Times that Pike's case was unlike any other botched execution in the modern era and had no precedent. UN rights chief Volker Turk has also urged Tennessee not to make another attempt to execute Pike.
Slemmer's mother says state owes family an apology
May Martinez, Slemmer's mother and an execution witness, criticised the state after the failed procedure. "The state owes me a big apology," she told a local news outlet, adding that officials had failed her family. Martinez, who travelled from Florida to Tennessee, said: “All I wanted was justice.”
Trump slams officials for botched execution
US President Donald Trump also questioned how the execution could have failed, saying it "shouldn't be very difficult".
Had the execution been completed, Pike would have been the first woman executed by Tennessee in more than two centuries. Across the United States, 18 women have been executed since 1976, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
