Christa Pike, the Tennessee death row prisoner who survived an attempt to execute her by lethal injection on September 30, is walking with help and eating in hospital, her lawyers said this week. They also warned that she faces uncertain physical recovery, serious psychological trauma and an unresolved legal future.
Pike, 50, was sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of Colleen Slemmer, 19, whom she killed with her then-boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, after they met at a job training programme for low-income young people. Pike was 18 and Shipp 17. Shipp avoided the death penalty because he was a minor and remains in prison. Two doses of pentobarbital failed to kill her. Witnesses said she raised her head, said her arm hurt and later appeared to lose consciousness but kept breathing heavily, until media witnesses were escorted out nearly 90 minutes in. She was taken to hospital, unconscious and on a ventilator for the first days.
Her lawyers say she regained consciousness on October 6, initially confused and angry, asking where she was. Her legal team described her arms as swollen, burned and blistered, and lawyer Stephen Ferrell told the BBC she was "foggy" and loses her train of thought easily, though "up and walking" around her room. Another lawyer, Randy Spivey, said she had pneumonia and a blood clot in one arm, and that it is unknown how much function she will regain. Her lawyers have asked a judge to remove restraints because of her injuries. They want Governor Bill Lee to commute her sentence to life without parole, saying she "should never be subjected to another execution attempt". The state attorney general said he did not know whether a new execution would be sought. Some Republican politicians have urged a different method; Senator Marsha Blackburn, a candidate for governor, said: "Bring back the electric chair."
On Wednesday, a Nashville judge ordered the state to preserve everything from the execution room, including IV lines, syringes and packaging, and to produce records on Pike's psychological condition. The evidence could support future litigation. Lee has paused executions for the rest of the year, promised an independent review, and the state's prisons chief has resigned. Officials have not explained what went wrong, though Pike's lawyers say no one on the team noticed the IV lines were wrongly placed, and experts suspect the drug pooled in her tissue instead of entering her bloodstream.
The case has drawn attention to a wider pattern. Lethal injection is the main method in 28 of the 29 states with capital punishment, yet a survey of executions from 1890 to 2010 found it was botched at more than twice the rate of other methods. Experts cite medical groups' bans on helping with executions, which leave prisons relying on poorly qualified staff, as well as drug shortages, compounded drugs and prisoners' health problems. Tennessee also halted Tony Carruthers' execution in May after staff struggled to set a backup IV line. Critics such as law professor Corinna Barrett Lain argue lethal injection was designed to look humane rather than be humane. Texas carried out the next US execution, of Jamaal Howard, on Wednesday.