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Christa Pike survived two doses of pentobarbital during Tennessee's attempt to execute her, prompting Gov. Bill Lee to halt all executions and order an outside review. Her attorneys are calling for her sentence to be commuted.
Christa Pike survived Tennessee's attempt to execute her by lethal injection on Wednesday, prompting Gov. Bill Lee to halt all executions and order an outside review.
Christa Pike Survives Lethal Injection Failure
The failed execution occurred on October 2, 2026, according to the latest reports. Pike remains in critical condition after receiving two ostensibly fatal doses of pentobarbital. Her legal team declined to give further details on her health. She is currently receiving life-saving medical care.
She was sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer. Pike had been scheduled to become the first woman executed in Tennessee in 200 years. Her execution was initially set for Wednesday morning, but last-minute legal appeals delayed it to later in the day. The execution protocol began in the early evening, and she gave her last words at 7:26 p.m., according to media witnesses.
After two doses of the drug cocktail, she was snoring and appeared to be alive.
"None of it was normal," said Catherine Sweeney, a reporter for WPLN. "I covered all the executions last year, and most of the ones this year. We haven't seen anything like it. It went really poorly.
" The Tennessee Department of Correction said it acted according to its protocol throughout the failed execution. "The Tennessee Department of Correction followed every step of the State's lawful, established execution protocol approved by the Attorney General's Office," the department said in a statement Wednesday. "The lethal injection chemical in the protocol has consistently been effective, and the protocol does not allow for additional procedures beyond what was carried out this evening.
Tennessee Governor Halts Executions Pending Review
" Lee announced he would call off the state's last remaining execution this year while a third-party review takes place to determine what exactly occurred. "The Governor has appropriately called for an investigation," the office of Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti said in a statement. "We need to know what happened. " The moratorium is part of the stop-and-start use of executions in Tennessee the last few years.
Lee similarly paused executions in 2022 for a review. Earlier this year, the state failed to carry out a lethal injection on a death row inmate after struggling to find a vein. Randy Spivey, one of Pike's attorneys, said the governor's call for a review of the execution protocol does not go far enough. He called for Lee to commute her sentence, saying she had endured punishment greater than any other person in the history of the American death penalty.
Attorneys said they had warned the court beforehand that Pike's vein issues would make it difficult to carry out the lethal injection.
"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," attorneys Spivey and Kelly Gleason said in a statement. But what happened Wednesday was essentially her biggest fear, attorney Stephen Ferrell said.
"It was not a fear of dying. It was a fear of prolonged, painful, traumatic death. That's what happened, minus the death," he said. While it is not uncommon to have a botched execution, it is exceedingly rare for an execution to simply fail, said Austin Sarat, an Amherst College professor and author of several books on the death penalty and lethal injection.
Legal Dilemma Arises When Inmate Survives Execution
"Those cases where people survive an execution create a real dilemma for the legal system. Now what?
" he said. Sarat said there is some legal precedent for inmates who survived an execution being put to death again. In a case 80 years ago, 16-year-old Willie Francis survived an execution via the electric chair in Louisiana due to a malfunction. He appealed his case to the U.S. Supreme Court, saying a second execution would violate the double jeopardy clause of the Constitution and the protections against cruel and unusual punishment.
The Court rejected his appeal, and he died in a second electric chair execution. Similarly, in a 2009 case, Ohio personnel attempted to execute Romell Broom by lethal injection, but they were unable to access a vein and establish an IV line. Afterward, he argued that a second execution attempt would violate the double jeopardy clause and protections against cruel and unusual punishment.
The Ohio Supreme Court ruled against him in 2016, saying that setting the IV line was only a preliminary step to an execution, so a second execution attempt would not be considered a violation of the double jeopardy clause. Broom ultimately died of COVID-19 in 2020 while still on death row, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Still, Pike's case is unique because the lethal drugs actually entered her system, Sarat said.
"So we're in kind of unprecedented territory with Pike in the sense of she survived her execution," he said. CNN has reached out to the governor's office for comment. Now, Pike's legal case will be at a standstill as the state conducts its third-party review of the failed execution.
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CTVNews:This story was compiled and edited by the HeadTopics newsroom and HT AI from the reports above.
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