How does Tennessee move forward after failed execution of Christa Pike? – Spectrum News

How does Tennessee move forward after failed execution of Christa Pike?  Spectrum News

After two doses of pentobarbital, Pike was still alive and breathing according to media witnesses in the execution chamber. TENNESSEE — Christa Pike, who has been on Tennessee’s death row for more than 30 years, was scheduled to be executed on Wednesday, September 30. After two doses of pentobarbital, Tennessee’s lethal injection of choice, Pike was still alive and breathing according to media witnesses in the execution chamber. She was transported from Riverbend Maximum Security Prison to a nearby medical facility shortly after. Pike’s attorneys confirmed that she was alive and receiving medical care on Thursday afternoon, but that she was in critical condition. Pike was sentenced to death in 1996, at the age of 18 for the murder of Colleen Slemmer in Knoxville.

Since then, her legal team has argued that key evidence regarding a history of untreated trauma and sexual abuse was omitted from the initial trial and may have resulted in lighter sentencing had the information been made available. Requests for clemency from Governor Bill Lee and a stay on the execution from the U.S. Supreme Court were both shot down weeks before Pike was scheduled to be put to death. Early Wednesday morning, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit issued a stay to consider mitigating evidence prior to the execution set to