Tennessee halts executions after Christa Pike survives lethal injection

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee halted the state’s remaining scheduled execution this year after Christa Gail Pike survived a lethal injection Wednesday and was taken from prison to a hospital. Her lawyers said she received two doses of the execution drug but remained alive.

Pike, 50, is Tennessee’s only woman on death row. She was sentenced to death for the 1995 killing of her classmate, 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, when Pike was 18. She would have been the first woman executed by Tennessee in more than 200 years.

Lee ordered “a comprehensive, third-party review to determine exactly what occurred.” In a statement, he said the public expects the state to carry out a lawfully imposed sentence in a way that is “not only legal and constitutional, but is effective.”

Pike’s attorneys said she was receiving treatment at a hospital but that they had not been told her condition. The Tennessee Department of Correction said she had been transported to an off-site medical facility. It said officials “followed every step of the State’s lawful, established execution protocol approved by the Attorney General’s Office.”

Witnesses said Pike was strapped to a gurney when curtains opened onto the execution chamber at 7:27 p.m. “I’m going to leave this world the way I spent most of my life and that is in love,” she said in what were intended to be her last words, according to NPR.

She remained awake. Tori Gessner, a reporter who has witnessed five Tennessee executions, said Pike complained, “My arm feels like it’s about to burst open.” Witnesses also described hearing her snore and seeing her kick her feet. NPR reported that the second dose of pentobarbital had been administered by 8:26 p.m.; witnesses continued to hear Pike snoring until the microphone was cut off at 8:53 p.m.

Pike’s lawyers filed emergency court motions seeking to stop the execution, saying she was in “unnecessary agony.” Tennessee’s protocol provides for a second set of drug syringes if a prisoner remains alive after the first, but does not specify what happens if the prisoner survives the second set, NPR reported.

Robin M. Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, called Pike’s experience “singular and unparalleled.” Maher told NPR that others have survived execution attempts when teams could not access a vein, but none had survived after receiving the drugs.

The attempt followed a day of court battles. About an hour before Pike’s scheduled morning execution, a federal appeals court temporarily blocked it to consider her claims that childhood sexual abuse had not been fully considered. The U.S. Supreme Court later lifted the stay over the dissent of three justices.

Pike does not deny killing Slemmer. Her supporters have asked officials to consider her age at the time, mental illness and allegations of severe sexual abuse. Slemmer’s mother, May Martinez, told NBC News after the failed attempt, “It was a mess.” She said Pike had expressed no remorse during the proceedings.

It was Tennessee’s second unsuccessful execution attempt this year. In May, officials called off Tony Carruthers’ execution after they could not place an IV.