Tennessee’s execution chamber was supposed to deliver a death sentence. Instead, it delivered a medical emergency that has now left convicted murderer Christa Pike unconscious and on a ventilator.
Pike, 50, remained critically ill in a Nashville-area hospital as of Thursday evening after surviving two doses of pentobarbital during a failed lethal-injection attempt at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution on Sept. 30, according to her attorneys. Hospital staff were working to keep her alive and clear the drug from her system.
Her lawyers have now gone to court seeking to preserve evidence from the execution attempt, arguing that what happened inside Tennessee’s execution chamber needs to be documented before crucial records, materials, and other evidence disappear.
And there is plenty to investigate.
According to the emergency filing, the execution team struggled for an extended period to establish intravenous access. Pike’s attorneys say at least seven needles were used as officials attempted to locate a workable vein.
The lawyers contend that the IV lines were improperly positioned and that pentobarbital entered surrounding tissue rather than the bloodstream.
“Apparently at no point did any member of the execution team realize that the IV lines were not correctly placed or that the veins had blown,” Pike’s attorneys wrote, according to the filing. They further contend that the state proceeded to administer another dose rather than stopping the procedure.
Pike was eventually transported to a hospital.
Her lawyers said both of her arms were “swollen, burned, and blistered” when she arrived. Medical personnel have been treating the serious effects of the pentobarbital while attempting to save her life.
The execution itself followed a dramatic legal battle.
Pike had been scheduled to die at 10 a.m. Wednesday, but a federal appeals court temporarily halted the execution shortly before it was supposed to occur. The court wanted additional time to consider whether evidence concerning Pike’s history of childhood sexual abuse had been adequately presented during her capital sentencing proceedings.
Tennessee immediately appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The high court voted 6-3 to lift the stay, allowing Tennessee to proceed before Pike’s execution warrant expired. The three dissenting justices objected to the decision to vacate the lower court's stay.
The execution eventually began around 7:30 p.m.
It did not go as planned.
Witnesses reported that Pike remained alive long after the drugs were administered. ABC reported that witnesses could hear her breathing and snoring more than an hour into the procedure, while her attorneys described serious complications involving the IV lines.
Pike’s lawyers had warned months earlier that her physical condition could make lethal injection particularly dangerous. Court filings cited thrombocytosis, PTSD, and small veins as factors they said created a heightened risk of unnecessary pain and suffering.
That warning now sits at the center of the legal fight.
Pike was sentenced to death in 1996 for the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, a fellow participant in a job-training program. Pike was 18 when she committed the crime. Court records describe a brutal killing for which Pike was convicted of first-degree murder.
Had the execution proceeded normally, Pike would have become the first woman executed by Tennessee in more than two centuries. She was the only woman on Tennessee’s death row.
Now, instead of a completed execution, Tennessee has a seriously injured death-row inmate in a hospital and a growing list of questions about what went wrong.
Gov. Bill Lee has ordered an independent review and halted the remaining scheduled execution in Tennessee for the rest of the year. Lee said the state needs to determine why the procedure produced an outcome so different from what officials expected.
That investigation should answer some very basic questions.
Were the IV lines properly placed? Why did the procedure continue after problems became apparent? Why was a second dose administered? And were the concerns raised beforehand by Pike’s attorneys adequately addressed?
Those questions do not erase the crime for which Pike was sentenced to death. Nor do they erase the suffering inflicted on Colleen Slemmer and her family.
But the government’s obligation to administer a lawful sentence does not disappear simply because the person receiving it was convicted of a horrific crime.
Law and order requires the state to follow its own rules.
Tennessee now has the responsibility to determine exactly what happened inside that execution chamber, preserve the evidence, and provide the public with answers. Whatever Americans believe about the death penalty, a government entrusted with the power to impose the ultimate punishment must be held to an extraordinary standard of competence, accountability, and adherence to the law.
