Tennessee prison chief Frank Strada resigns after Christa Pike's botched execution

Strada said his resignation was 'in the best interest of Tennesseans' while the review is conducted and defended the state's execution process

Tennessee Department of Correction Commissioner Frank Strada will resign this month following the failed execution of death row inmate Christa Pike, Governor Bill Lee announced Saturday, as the state faces growing calls for answers over the second botched execution attempt in five months.Lee also appointed former US Attorney Ed Stanton to lead an independent review of what went wrong during Pike's execution attempt on Wednesday. The governor has halted further executions while the review is under way.Strada said his resignation was “in the best interest of Tennesseans” while the review is conducted. He defended the state's execution process, saying he believed Tennessee “carried out its responsibilities in accordance with the established protocol.”Pike, 50, remained unconscious and on a ventilator in hospital after the state administered two doses of the lethal drug pentobarbital but failed to complete her execution. Her lawyers said hospital staff were trying to clear the drug from her system. There was no immediate update on her condition from her legal team on Saturday.Pike's lawyers welcomed Strada's departure but said it “does nothing to help Christa now.”

“What happened to her Wednesday reflects a systemic failure that goes far beyond any one person,” the four-lawyer team said. “We hope the governor’s call for a full, independent review will expose the profound problems within Tennessee’s entire death penalty system.”

Problems with IV lines blamed

The execution attempt has drawn criticism from both supporters and opponents of the death penalty. Pike's lawyers said they believed problems with the IV lines caused the pentobarbital to enter her body rather than her bloodstream.Pike was reportedly cooperative as the execution team struggled to insert the IV lines. Her lawyer Randy Spivey said she even told staff, “please try here, please try here” as they attempted to place the lines.

Second failed execution since May

The incident was the second time since May that Tennessee stopped an execution after a prisoner appeared to be close to death. In May, officials halted the execution of Tony Carruthers after they managed to place an IV in his right arm but could not establish a second line.

Lee later ordered that Carruthers not be executed again for at least a year.Stanton has previously reviewed problems with Tennessee's lethal injection process. In 2022, Lee appointed him to examine why another execution was called off. Stanton concluded that the state had failed to follow its own lethal injection procedures.

Strada's record in Tennessee and Arizona

Strada became commissioner of Tennessee's Department of Correction in January 2023 after serving as deputy director of the Arizona Department of Corrections.

In late 2024, he announced that Tennessee would change its lethal injection protocol and use only pentobarbital.His record in Arizona has also come under scrutiny. Court filings show that Strada oversaw executions there when the state resumed carrying them out in 2022 after an eight-year pause.During the execution of Clarence Dixon that year, medical staff struggled to find a vein and eventually made an incision in his groin to administer the drugs.

The process lasted about 25 minutes.Medical staff also initially struggled to find a vein during Frank Atwood's execution in 2022 before inserting an IV into his right hand. During Murray Hooper's execution later that year, an attempt to place an IV in his right arm failed, while a line inserted in his leg entered his femoral artery.“When Governor Lee hired Strada to fix execution problems in Tennessee, his problematic history of executions in Arizona was well known,” said Kit Thomas, an attorney who has represented people on Tennessee's death row.