Christa Pike survives two lethal injections during failed Tennessee execution

Tennessee death-row prisoner Christa Pike has survived an attempted execution after receiving two doses of the lethal-injection drug pentobarbital.

Pike, 50, was taken by ambulance to a hospital after her heart continued beating following both rounds of drugs. Her lawyers said she had lost consciousness but still had a heartbeat and could be heard snoring loudly inside the execution chamber. Her current medical condition has not been publicly disclosed. 

The circumstances are highly unusual. Tennessee’s protocol provides for a second set of lethal-injection syringes if the prisoner remains alive after the first, but apparently does not specify what officials should do if the prisoner remains alive after the second set. 

Witnesses said Pike was strapped to the execution gurney shortly before 7:30 p.m. local time. At one stage she remained awake and raised her head, asking officials whether her arm was supposed to feel the way it did. By about 8:26 p.m., the second dose had been administered, but she remained alive. Witnesses continued hearing her snoring until the microphone was switched off shortly before 9 p.m. 

Her lawyers filed emergency applications to stop the execution while it was unfolding, arguing that continuing the procedure amounted to cruel and unusual punishment.

Tennessee suspends further executions

Governor Bill Lee has now ordered a comprehensive independent review into what happened. He has also said Tennessee’s remaining scheduled execution will not take place this year. 

The Tennessee Department of Correction maintains that officials followed every step of the state’s approved execution protocol. 

Pike had been sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, committed when Pike was 18. Had the execution succeeded, she would have become the first woman executed in Tennessee in at least two centuries. 

What makes this case particularly extraordinary is that execution experts cited by AP say there have been prisoners who survived aborted lethal-injection attempts because officials could not establish intravenous access, but they were unaware of another modern US case in which someone remained alive after the execution drugs themselves had actually been administered. 

This is therefore no longer simply a delayed execution. It raises a major constitutional question over whether Tennessee could legally attempt to execute Pike again after she has already undergone the complete two-dose procedure and survived.