Tennessee death row inmate Christa Pike hospitalized after two lethal injections

A failed execution

Christa Pike was scheduled to be executed on Thursday at 10:00 am local time at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Tennessee. Had it succeeded, she would have become the first woman executed by lethal injection in the state in 200 years. According to witnesses, including investigative journalist John North of WBIR, who was present at the site, Pike continued breathing after receiving two injections of pentobarbital. "It appears this did not go how this was supposed to go," North said, adding that when witnesses left the building, Pike was, as far as they knew, probably still alive. During the livestream, an ambulance with flashing lights was seen leaving the site, though it is unclear whether it was transporting Pike.

Pike's attorneys said in a statement: "Tonight the State of Tennessee once again failed to carry out a lawful execution. Christa is being treated at a nearby hospital. We have not been informed as to her condition." Tennessee corrections officials did not publicly confirm the outcome of the procedure.

The legal path to execution

Just hours before the scheduled execution, the US Supreme Court cleared the way for it to proceed. Liberal justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, writing that the decision unnecessarily prevented a lower court from giving due consideration to Pike's claim, and that such "extraordinary relief" was granted solely to let the state execute her before litigation over her conviction had run its course. On Tuesday, the Supreme Court had already rejected an application for a stay, which argued that Pike's history as a victim of sexual assault, her post-traumatic stress disorder and a blood condition meant lethal injection would cause "needless suffering."

Background and mental health concerns

Pike was 18 when she and her boyfriend beat and killed 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer at a job training camp for young people. The case drew national attention after Slemmer's body was found with a pentagram carved into her chest. Pike's lawyers had petitioned Tennessee Governor Bill Lee for clemency, citing her young age and severe mental illness at the time of the crime, but the governor declined to intervene. Independent UN rights experts had urged US and Tennessee authorities to "immediately halt" the execution, noting that Pike had suffered childhood abuse and nearly three decades of solitary confinement on death row. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, only 18 women have been executed in the US since 1976.