Christa Pike’s execution by lethal injection fails in Tennessee

Tennessee authorities attempted to execute Christa Gail Pike on Wednesday but the procedure was interrupted after officials reportedly administered two doses of the sedative pentobarbital. Media witnesses at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville said prison staff closed and reopened the curtain separating Pike from the viewing area multiple times; they reported hearing Pike snoring and noted emergency vehicles arriving and departing while the microphone was later switched off and witnesses were ordered to leave. The execution had been paused earlier in the day when the 6th US Circuit Court of Appeals issued a 2-1 stay to allow consideration of Pike’s claim that her history of childhood sexual abuse had not been fully weighed at sentencing. The US Supreme Court subsequently lifted that stay, with the court’s conservative majority clearing the way for the execution and three liberal justices dissenting. Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that vacating the stay prevented the appeals court from fully examining Pike’s allegations. Pike was convicted alongside her then-boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, for the 1995 killing of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer. Shipp, who was 17 at the time, received life with the possibility of parole; Pike alone was sentenced to death. Pike has admitted to the killing but and her defense has emphasized her age at the time, diagnoses of bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder, and allegations of longstanding sexual abuse beginning in childhood. Supporters and Pike’s lawyers argued those factors amounted to mitigating circumstances that were not adequately considered by her jury. In filings and a clemency petition, Pike described the killing as occurring during a frenzied episode and urged consideration of her mental illness and abuse history. Slemmer’s mother has said she wants the death sentence carried out, after waiting decades for the execution to proceed. Tennessee has not executed a woman in at least 200 years, and since 1976 only 18 women have been executed in the US, representing roughly 1% of all executions, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.