On ventilator and unconscious, what's next for Christa Pike after surviving lethal injection

Pike's attorneys are now seeking commutation of the death sentence, while the state faces an independent review of how an execution that was supposed to end Pike's life instead left her critically ill in a hospital.

Christa Pike remains in critical condition, unconscious and on a ventilator, two days after Tennessee's attempt to execute her by lethal injection failed, according to her attorneys.

Pike's lawyers said in an emergency court filing on Friday (October 2) that she is intubated and receiving breathing assistance while hospital staff work to treat her injuries and clear the lethal drug pentobarbital from her system.

The failed execution has also raised a difficult legal question: what happens when a death-row inmate survives an execution attempt?

Pike suffered injuries during failed execution

Tennessee administered two doses of pentobarbital during Wednesday night's execution attempt, but Pike survived. Her attorneys said she suffered significant injuries to both arms after execution personnel struggled to establish intravenous access.

According to the filing, the execution team did not realise that the IV lines had been incorrectly placed or that Pike's veins had "blown", meaning the pentobarbital was not properly entering her bloodstream.

Pike's defence lawyer Randy Spivey said the execution team worked for about an hour to administer the drugs and that he counted at least seven needles in her left arm.

Neither the initial nor backup dose resulted in her death. Pike was reportedly still snoring when the execution chamber's microphone was switched off more than an hour after the procedure began.

What happens to Pike's death sentence now?

Pike's attorneys are seeking to have her death sentence commuted following the failed execution.

The immediate legal focus, however, is on her medical condition and preserving evidence from the execution. Her lawyers have asked a Tennessee court to order the state's Department of Correction to preserve evidence relating to what happened during the procedure.

The review could therefore play a significant role in determining what happens next, particularly given that the state has acknowledged the need to examine the circumstances surrounding the failed execution.

Can Tennessee try to execute Pike again?

There is legal precedent for death-row prisoners who survive an execution attempt being subjected to another attempt, although Pike's circumstances are unusual.

CNN report stated that in 1947, 16-year-old Willie Francis survived an electrocution in Louisiana after the electric chair malfunctioned. The US Supreme Court rejected his argument that a second execution would violate constitutional protections, and Francis was subsequently executed.

The news outlet also stated that another case involved Ohio death-row inmate Romell Broom. In 2009, officials spent hours trying to establish an IV line for his lethal injection but were unable to do so. Broom later challenged another execution attempt on constitutional grounds. The Ohio Supreme Court rejected his claim in 2016, ruling that establishing an IV was a preliminary step rather than the execution itself.

Broom ultimately died in prison in 2020 while still on death row.

Pike's case differs because lethal drugs were actually administered, her attorneys and legal experts have said. Austin Sarat, an Amherst College professor who studies the death penalty, described Pike's survival after the drugs entered her system as an unprecedented situation, CNN said.

“Those cases where people survive an execution create a real dilemma for the legal system. Now what?” he said.

Tennessee has paused executions

Pike's failed execution was the state's second botched execution this year. Lee has postponed Pike's execution and another scheduled execution and ordered an independent investigation into Tennessee's procedures.

The episode has also prompted debate over whether Tennessee should continue using single-drug lethal injections or consider alternative execution methods.

For now, Pike's immediate situation is medical rather than procedural. She remains unconscious and dependent on a ventilator while doctors treat the consequences of the failed execution.

Pike, now 50, was sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, whom she killed when she was 18. She had been scheduled to become the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than two hundred years.

Her attorneys are now seeking commutation of the death sentence, while the state faces an independent review of how an execution that was supposed to end Pike's life instead left her critically ill in a hospital.

(with Reuters, AP inputs)

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