Lawyers for Christa Pike announced on Friday that the condemned inmate remains unconscious and dependent on a ventilator in a Nashville hospital, hours after a botched lethal injection procedure in Tennessee. The court filing provides the first detailed account of Pike’s condition following the incident.
Pike, 50, was sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer. During the Wednesday execution attempt, she audibly began snoring shortly after being administered two doses of the sedative pentobarbital, raising immediate concerns that the drugs were not effectively inducing coma.
According to the attorneys, the failure stemmed from improperly placed IV lines. “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 and that the pentobarbital was, in whole or in part, entering Ms. Pike’s body,” they wrote. Rather than addressing the failed administration, officials prepared and delivered a second dose of the drug.
Pike is believed to be the first person in the modern era of capital punishment to survive the administration of lethal injection drugs, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. She was poised to become the first woman executed in Tennessee in two centuries had the procedure succeeded.
In response to the controversy, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee, a Republican, paused the execution on Thursday. He announced that the state would conduct a comprehensive, third-party review of the circumstances surrounding the botched attempt.
Legal and medical questions now surround whether the state can proceed with another execution attempt given Pike’s current critical health status.
First survival in modern history? That alone proves the death penalty is broken beyond repair.
IV lines blown and they just kept pushing? This isn’t execution, it’s negligence. How is this even legal?