TENNESSEE death row inmate Christa Pike has been taken to an off-site hospital after surviving two lethal injections during an attempted execution in which her heart continued beating, according to her lawyer.
Pike, 50, was administered two doses of pentobarbital at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville on Wednesday night, but her execution was halted after medical complications emerged.
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Her legal team filed an emergency motion seeking to stop the execution and provide medical care, stating: “Ms Pike has lost consciousness and still has a heartbeat and is audibly snoring.”
One of Pike’s attorneys told the BBC that she was “being provided life-saving measures” at the hospital.
District Judge Clifton L Corker subsequently issued a ruling noting that “medical personnel have begun to administer medical care as requested in the motion”.
The Tennessee Department of Correction said Pike’s execution had followed the state’s established procedure and confirmed that she had been transported to an external medical facility.
“The Tennessee Department of Correction followed every step of the State’s lawful, established execution protocol approved by the Attorney General’s Office,” department spokesperson Dorinda Carter told the Tennessean newspaper.
“The 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,” she said.
Pike’s attorneys argued that the failed execution reflected concerns they had previously raised about Tennessee’s lethal injection process.
In a statement to the Tennessean, the legal team said: “Tonight the State of Tennessee once again failed to carry out a lawful execution.
“We take no pleasure in being right, but the concerns raised by Ms Pike proved to be true: difficult vein access, blown veins, degraded pentobarbital, no emergency medical care available when things inevitably go wrong, all under a protocol that remains veiled in secrecy.”
The lawyers had sought an emergency stay after the lethal injection apparently failed to produce the intended result.
Dr Joel Zivot, a professor at the Emory University School of Medicine who said he had been retained by Pike’s lawyers as a medical expert, told the BBC that Pike likely did not reach a sufficient blood concentration of pentobarbital to cause apnoea and cardiovascular failure.
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“It’s very possible that as a consequence of the delay of the beginning of resuscitation she will have a brain injury,” Zivot said in an email.
The attempted execution took place at about 20:00 local time. The Associated Press reported that the witness-room curtain was closed twice after the two doses were administered, while media representatives were at one point asked to leave.
Pike’s execution proceeded after a series of last-minute legal challenges failed.
The US Supreme Court overturned a reprieve issued earlier on Wednesday by a lower court, which had temporarily paused the execution to allow more time to consider arguments in the case.
The Supreme Court had earlier rejected another appeal from Pike’s lawyers. The defence had argued that jurors who sentenced her to death in 1996 were not allowed to consider mitigating evidence concerning her documented history of childhood sexual abuse.
Pike’s lawyers said Tennessee had spent years arguing in court that she had lied about being sexually abused as a child. At a recent hearing concerning the state’s execution method, however, the state said it did not dispute that Pike had suffered sexual abuse and rape.
Tennessee’s governor also rejected Pike’s clemency request this week. She is the only woman currently on Tennessee’s death row.
Pike was sentenced to death in 1996 for the murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer.
Pike was 18 when she and her then-boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, beat, tortured and killed Slemmer after the two teenagers met her at a job training camp for troubled young people.
The murder generated significant media attention in Knoxville after Slemmer was found with an inverted pentagram carved into her chest. Pike has denied carving the symbol herself.
Before the killing, Pike had accused Slemmer of insulting her and attempting to take her then-boyfriend. Two other residents at the training camp later testified that Pike had boasted about the killing before and after it happened and had shown them a piece of Slemmer’s skull.
In her clemency petition, Pike said she had intended to beat Slemmer rather than kill her, but was unable to “put the brakes on”.
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“I was a mentally ill 18-year-old kid,” she said in a statement. “It took me numerous years to even realise the gravity of what I’d done. Even more to accept how many lives I affected. I took the life of someone’s child, sister, friend. It sickens me now to think I had the ability to commit such a crime.”
Slemmer’s mother, May Martinez, had waited decades for Pike’s sentence to be carried out.
