Free Republic

The remarkable survival of Christa Pike after an attempted execution in Tennessee poses equally remarkable legal questions about whether a second state attempt to kill her would violate the Constitution. snip At the time, it was the only known U.S. case of a condemned person surviving an attempted execution. Francis, who at age 16 had been convicted of murdering a former employer, challenged a second electrocution by arguing it would violate 14th Amendment due process rights, a 5th Amendment prohibition on multiple punishments, and amount to cruel and unusual punishment under the 8th Amendment. Attorneys for Christa Pike could likely...

As questions remain as to what happens next for Tennessee death row inmate Christa Pike after a botched execution attempt last week, her accomplice and former boyfriend has at least another five years before his next parole hearing in the 1995 torture and murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in Knoxville. Tadaryl Shipp, 49, was 17 years old when he, Pike and another person tortured and killed Slemmer, their classmate from a vocational school, in a crime with "satanic elements" that still haunts investigators 31 years later. Prosecutors accused Shipp of holding Slemmer down when she tried to escape her attackers...

Tennessee death row inmate Christa Pike has been discharged from the hospital and returned to prison after surviving a botched lethal injection that left her with serious medical complications, her attorneys announced. Pike, who survived two doses of the execution drug pentobarbital on Sept. 30, is back at the Deborah K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center, where she has been housed for more than 30 years, according to a joint statement from her legal team. "Christa Pike was discharged from a local hospital and is now at Deborah K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center where she has been housed for more than 30 years,"...

Christa Pike, a Tennessee inmate who survived Tennessee’s attempt to execute her, is conscious and speaking as she continues to receive medical care at a hospital, according to a statement from her attorneys. “Against all odds, Christa Pike is conscious, speaking, and continues to receive critical medical care. Despite the severe damage she endured to her arms, she is still handcuffed and shackled to the bed. Her recovery is medically unprecedented. Her prognosis remains unclear but, at a minimum, we expect a long recovery,” her attorneys said in a statement. Pike survived two ostensibly lethal doses of pentobarbital last week...

Tennessee didn't just fail to execute Christa Pike, argues anesthesiologist and intensive care doctor Joel Zivot in a New York Times opinion piece—it exposed what lethal injection really is. Zivot, hired as a medical expert by Pike's legal team, says he warned that her small veins and medical history made a botched execution more likely. On Wednesday, pentobarbital was injected into her veins; when the first dose didn't stop her heart, a second was given. Her arms turned purple, her lawyers say, and she reported extreme pain before an ambulance was finally called more than an hour after the process...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — An ambulance is designed to save a life, but Wednesday night, one was called to Riverbend Maximum Security Prison after the State of Tennessee tried to end one. The failed execution of Christa Pike, who was sentenced to death for brutally torturing and murdering 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in Knoxville in 1995, has raised a lot of questions, including why prison officials called emergency medical services so Pike could receive lifesaving care after attempting to execute her just minutes prior. Pike received two doses of the lethal drug, pentobarbital and survived on Wednesday. According to Pike’s attorneys,...

Christa Pike is unconscious and on a ventilator after a botched execution late Wednesday evening, her attorneys said. Christa Pike, 50, was sentenced to death for a 1995 fatal stabbing, torture and beating of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer. An inverted pentagram was carved into Slemmer’s chest during the gruesome murder. Pike was 18 at the time of the murder. Pike’s boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, was also convicted of the 1995 murder.

The doctor who oversaw Christa Pike's failed lethal injection also supervised another Tennessee death row inmate's botched execution in May. Pike, 50, who was sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of her classmate Colleen Slemmer, was administered two syringes of pentobarbital at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville late Wednesday. But she was still alive and loudly snoring after the attempted lethal injection and was rushed to a hospital by ambulance, her attorneys said. She remains hospitalized, but her legal team claims they have not been informed about her condition and no updates have been given. Her lawyers...

The first woman set to be put to death in Tennessee in over 200 years was given two doses of a lethal injection Wednesday evening, but remained alive as her botched execution descended into chaos — and prompted the governor to demand an outside probe and issue an emergency pause on all executions for the remainder of the year. Christa Pike, 50, was strapped to a gurney in the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution death chamber just before 7:30 p.m. CDT after the US Supreme Court overruled her stay of execution an hour earlier. Pike — who, at 18, murdered her...

…..According to media witnesses, authorities appeared to give Pike two doses of pentobarbital, and she was still awake and snoring more than 40 minutes after the last dose, The AP reported, and at 8:53 p.m. local time, there was an announcement to escort media witnesses out of the area.

Witnesses said a second dose of pentobarbital were used after the first dose did not kill Pike. The second dose did not kill her either. She was still alive when witnesses left the room.

A federal appeals court Wednesday morning halted the execution of the lone woman on Tennessee’s death row about an before it was scheduled to occur. In a last-minute decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth District said it needed to review claims that Christa Pike’s legal team made in a bid to stop her execution. “The interests of justice and the finality of Pike’s impending execution compel the entry of a short stay of execution in order to properly analyze the parties’ fully briefed arguments and resolve the issues on the merits,” the court said. It’s unclear how...

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WVLT) - Special Master W. Mark Ward has denied Christa Gail Pike’s emergency motion to reopen a hearing in her challenge to Tennessee’s lethal injection protocol. It’s an update the legal team for the only woman on Tennessee’s death row is calling disappointing. Pike and her representatives had tried to argue that the physician involved in Tony Carruthers’ botched May execution isn’t fit to play a part in Pike’s, something Ward said isn’t set in stone. “We are deeply disappointed in the Special Master’s denial of our emergency motion to reopen Christa Pike’s hearing to address the qualifications...