{"id":6437,"date":"2026-10-01T11:23:48","date_gmt":"2026-10-01T11:23:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=6437"},"modified":"2026-10-01T11:23:48","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T11:23:48","slug":"christa-pike-execution-fails-what-next-when-a-lethal-injection-is-botched-death-penalty-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=6437","title":{"rendered":"Christa Pike execution fails: What next when a lethal injection is botched? | Death Penalty News"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n \t<\/i> Read Time:<\/span>8 Minute, 24 Second <\/div>\n\n <\/div>


\n<\/p>\n

\n

Two doses of a lethal injection drug have failed to kill Christa Gail Pike<\/a>, a 50-year-old woman who was due to be executed on Wednesday. Pike was taken to hospital after it was found that her heart was still beating following the procedure.<\/p>\n

Pike would have been the first woman in more than 200 years to be put to death in Tennessee and was the only woman on the state\u2019s death row. Her attempted execution with doses of the sedative pentobarbital went ahead despite a last-minute stay by a federal appeals court on Wednesday, which was overturned just an hour before her execution by the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

\n

Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n

list of 3 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n

Human rights experts said the botched execution illustrates why the death penalty is inhumane and should be abolished.<\/p>\n

Clive Stafford Smith, a human rights lawyer who has represented many American death row<\/a> inmates as well as detainees held at the notorious Guantanamo Bay detention centre, told Al Jazeera: \u201cI\u2019ve been in the execution chamber with six of my clients and it\u2019s never the clinical process they\u2019d have you believe. And it\u2019s always a desperate midnight struggle to stop it.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cIn the end, you have to question whether this makes the world a better, more civilised place. Why, indeed, do we kill people to prove that killing people is wrong?\u201d<\/p>\n

Ahead of the planned execution, Morris Tidball-Binz, the UN special rapporteur on arbitrary executions, told the UK\u2019s Times newspaper: \u201cIf executed, Christa Pike would be a victim of torture to death. This will be a gross violation of human rights.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what we know about what happens when an execution goes wrong.<\/p>\n

What is the case against Pike?<\/h2>\n

Pike was found guilty<\/a> of the murder of another young woman she had viewed as a romantic rival, when she was aged 18, more than 30 years ago.<\/p>\n

In January 1995, Pike, her 17-year-old boyfriend Tadaryl Shipp and 18-year-old Shadolla Peterson lured Colleen Slemmer, 19, into a wooded area and tortured and killed her. All four were students at a Job Corps vocational centre in Knoxville.<\/p>\n

The case attracted huge public interest, especially after it was revealed that the attackers had carved a pentagram into Slemmer\u2019s chest, which Shipp later admitted to doing. Pike, who delivered the killing blow to the victim\u2019s head, smashing her skull, kept a piece of Slemmer\u2019s skull afterwards.<\/p>\n

Pike and Shipp confessed and were convicted of first-degree murder in 1996. Pike was sentenced to death; Shipp, who was 17 at the time and therefore ineligible for the death penalty, received life with the possibility of parole.<\/p>\n

Her case is highly unusual in that she is a woman and was a teenager when she carried out the murder. Other death row inmates who were convicted at the age of 18 \u2013 all men \u2013 have had their sentences commuted to life in prison without parole.<\/p>\n

\u201cChrista is a 50-year-old remorseful woman who understands her actions,\u201d her lawyers wrote. They also argued that Pike had been the victim of appalling childhood abuse \u2013 including two rapes when she was aged 11 and 17.<\/p>\n

Stafford Smith told Al Jazeera: \u201cVery few women are executed, but fewer still in Tennessee \u2013 it has been 200 years. So, this is a step back to about 1820. Christa was just a teenager, and had undergone horrendous abuse as a child. Now she is 50, a totally different person. It is so pointless \u2013 will this really make the world a more civilised place?\u201d<\/p>\n

Slemmer\u2019s mother, May Martinez, however, has spoken out in support of the execution.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday,\u00a0a federal court temporarily put the planned execution on hold, on legal and technical grounds. But an hour before the midnight deadline for her execution was to expire, the US Supreme Court overruled the stay on her execution, paving the way for jail authorities to proceed.<\/p>\n

Pike had asked to be shot by an all-female firing squad instead of by lethal injection, which she said she feared would be too painful.<\/p>\n

Her lawyers had also argued that the injection would be torturous for her as she has \u201csmall veins\u201d. This request was denied, however.<\/p>\n

\"INTERACTIVE<\/p>\n

How did the execution go wrong?<\/h2>\n

Following the Supreme Court\u2019s order to go ahead with the execution, Pike was administered two doses of the sedative pentobarbital at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville, Tennessee, on Wednesday evening, according to media witnesses.<\/p>\n

From outside the prison, The Associated Press journalist Kim Chandler reported that, initially, when the injections were administered, Pike appeared noticeably awake.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe blinds were closed for the first time to the execution chamber at 7:46pm (23:46 GMT), they opened again at 7:49pm (23:49 GMT),\u201d Chandler said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHer mouth fell open a few times, and she began to loudly snore. She gasped a few times,\u201d she noted.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe curtain to the execution chamber closed for the final time at 8:06pm (00:06 GMT), and she could be heard loudly snoring, clearly very alive, in the chamber until media witnesses were told to leave the area at about 8:53pm (00:53 GMT),\u201d Chandler added.<\/p>\n

The Tennessee Department of Correction did not immediately explain why the execution had not been completed.<\/p>\n

According to NBC News, late on Wednesday, Pike\u2019s lawyers had filed a federal court motion during the process seeking again to halt her execution, citing witnesses\u2019 accounts that \u201cexecutioners had injected both syringes of lethal injection chemicals and Pike is still alive and snoring\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cMs Pike has not lost consciousness and still has a heartbeat and is audibly snoring,\u201d they said, according to the court documents seen by the media.<\/p>\n

Her lawyers also told US media that while she was being treated at a hospital, she needed \u201cimmediate medical care\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"INTERACTIVE<\/p>\n

Why didn\u2019t the execution work?<\/h2>\n

Tennessee authorities have not explained this yet.<\/p>\n

However, Stafford Smith, who has attended several executions in support of clients in the past, told Al Jazeera that there are two probable reasons why the injection failed to kill Pike.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first is that the drugs were probably out of date. Something that we\u2019ve been observing a lot for the last 10 years is that they administer drugs that are no longer valid,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Stafford Smith noted that there is, however, a valid reason for this, which is that drug companies make sedatives like pentobarbital to help people and save lives and are often opposed to their drugs being used to execute people.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo the states have a real problem getting drugs to kill people and they\u2019ve gone to extraordinary extents with very unreliable providers. So you can suspect that they just had an invalid batch of drugs in Pike\u2019s case,\u201d Smith explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe other thing about Pike is that, as is very common with people who end up in her situation, they\u2019ve been through a lot of abuse and drug abuse. So it might have been very hard to find her veins and get a needle into it. Moreover, doctors are also not allowed to take part in this process in the US. So they have incompetent people administering such drugs, which could have resulted in the injection failing,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Defending its handling of the case, the Tennessee Department of Correction said in a statement late on Wednesday that the agency had \u201cfollowed every step of the state\u2019s lawful, established execution protocol approved by the Attorney General\u2019s Office\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe lethal injection chemical in the protocol has consistently been effective, and the protocol does not allow for additional procedures beyond what was carried out this evening. Christa Pike has been transported to an off-site medical facility,\u201d the statement concluded.<\/p>\n

What happens to Pike next?<\/h2>\n

At the moment, it is unclear, as Tennessee Governor Bill Lee has paused all remaining 2026 executions in the state following Wednesday\u2019s incident with Pike and has called for a comprehensive, third-party review. She is currently in hospital. She may return to death row, but Stafford Smith said this is uncertain.<\/p>\n

\"INTERACTIVE<\/p>\n

Has this happened before?<\/h2>\n

Yes. Botched executions do happen<\/a> but the frequency varies substantially by method, according to data compiled by legal scholar Austin Sarat and the Death Penalty Information Center.<\/p>\n

In his 2014 book, Gruesome Spectacles: Botched Executions and America\u2019s Death Penalty, Sarat noted<\/a> that from 1890 to 2010, 8,776 people were executed in the US and 276 of those executions (3.15 percent) went wrong in some way. Sarat also noted that lethal injection was the method that had the highest rate of botched executions at 7.2 percent in this period.<\/p>\n

Previous botched lethal injection cases include the case of murderer Alva Campbell in November 2017 in Ohio. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, \u201cthe execution team first worked on both of Alva Campbell\u2019s arms for about 30 minutes.. while he was on a gurney in the state\u2019s death chamber and then tried to find a vein in his right leg below the knee. \u2026 About 80 minutes after the execution was scheduled to begin, the 69-year-old Campbell shook hands with two guards after it appeared the insertion was successful.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAbout two minutes later \u2026 Gary Mohr, head of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction \u2026 called off the execution after talking with the medical team, [saying] \u2018It was my decision that it was not likely that we\u2019re going to access veins.\u2019\u201d But a few months later, in March, 2018, Campbell died on death row due to terminal medical conditions.<\/p>\n

\u201cBotched executions have happened many times. I\u2019ve had six of my clients executed over the years. Two were with the gas chamber, two with the electric chair and two with lethal injection, and there\u2019s almost always some form of botching,\u201d Stafford Smith said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut it\u2019s just an uncivilised process carried out by people who are pretty uncivilised,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


\n
Source link <\/a><\/p>\n

\n
\n \n
\n \n \"Happy\"\n <\/a>\n
\n Happy <\/div>\n
\n 0<\/span>\n \n 0<\/span> %<\/span>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n
\n \n \"Sad\"\n <\/a>\n
\n Sad <\/div>\n
\n 0<\/span>\n 0<\/span> %<\/span>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n
\n \n \"Excited\"\n <\/a>\n
\n Excited <\/div>\n
\n 0<\/span>\n 0<\/span> %<\/span>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n
\n \n \"Sleepy\"\n <\/a>\n
\n Sleepy <\/div>\n
\n 0<\/span>\n \n 0<\/span> %<\/span>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n
\n \n \"Angry\"\n <\/a>\n
Angry<\/div>\n
\n 0<\/span>\n 0<\/span> %<\/span>\n \n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n
\n \n \"Surprise\"\n <\/a>\n
Surprise<\/div>\n
\n 0<\/span>\n 0<\/span> %<\/span>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two doses of a lethal injection drug have failed to kill Christa Gail Pike, a 50-year-old woman who was due to be executed on Wednesday. Pike was taken to hospital after it was found that her heart was still beating following the procedure. Pike would have been the first woman in more than 200 years…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6438,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_2277560469115098_106292521332774":"","twitter_aToxNzczMzI3Njk4OTg4ODUxMjAxOw==_1773327698988851200":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_templately_pack_id":"","_templately_imported_at":"","_templately_source":"","_templately_import_session_id":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-international-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t