Nocturnal 
Tennessee death row inmate Christa Pike is in “critical condition, receiving life-saving care” after surviving two attempts to execute her by lethal injection, her lawyers say.
Pike, 50, was due to be put to death at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville at around 8pm local time on Wednesday 30 September. Her legal team filed an emergency motion to halt the execution while it was already under way, after she was given two doses of the lethal drug pentobarbital and remained alive.
Her lawyer, Randy Spivey, told reporters on Thursday: “We don’t have a sense of her prognosis or much update on her health at the moment. But we do know that she is alive right now.” Pike was taken from the execution chamber to a local hospital by ambulance late on Wednesday.
Spivey said the execution team had struggled for an hour to establish an IV line. “I counted at least seven needles used in her left arm alone, one of which appeared to be bent when it was pulled from her arm after an unsuccessful attempt,” he said. One media witness reported that Pike complained during the process, saying: “My arm feels like it’s about to burst open.”
Nashville Banner reporter Steven Hale, who witnessed the execution, told the BBC: “None of us had seen anything like that. It was definitely a disaster by pretty much any way of looking at it.” He told Radio 4’s Today programme that Pike “didn’t seem to be dying” but instead stayed in “this in-between state… much longer than would have been normal”.
Spivey said observers were kept behind a closed curtain in a darkened room after the second dose had been given and it became clear Pike was still breathing. “No-one knew what was going on behind that curtain,” he said. “I had no idea when and if medical professionals began to assist.”
Pike’s lawyers have blamed difficult vein access and degraded pentobarbital for the failure, concerns they say they had raised before the execution. This has not been confirmed. The Tennessee Department of Correction has defended its process, with spokesperson Dorinda Carter saying staff “followed every step of the State’s lawful, established execution protocol” and that the drug used “has consistently been effective”.
What happens next
Tennessee Governor Bill Lee has halted all executions in the state for the rest of the year and ordered “a comprehensive, third-party review to determine exactly what occurred”. Pike’s lawyers are now asking him to commute her death sentence.
The attempted execution followed a last-minute legal battle that ended with the US Supreme Court allowing it to proceed. Colleen Slemmer’s mother, May Martinez, who travelled to Tennessee to witness the execution, later told NBC News “it was a mess”. US President Donald Trump has also commented on the botched attempt, saying: “It shouldn’t be very difficult.”
Pike was sentenced to death in March 1996 for the 1995 murder of her 19-year-old classmate Colleen Slemmer, a crime committed when Pike was 18. She and her then-boyfriend Tadaryl Shipp beat Slemmer, carved a pentagram into her chest and forehead, and killed her with a piece of asphalt. Both confessed and were convicted of first-degree murder. Shipp was given a life sentence with the possibility of parole because he was not legally an adult at the time, and remains in prison.
Why it matters
The case has reignited scrutiny of lethal injection protocols in the US, with Pike’s lawyers arguing the failed attempt amounted to torturous treatment. The outcome of Governor Lee’s review, and his decision on whether to commute Pike’s sentence, will determine what happens to her next.
