US Supreme Court clears way for Tennessee woman’s execution

The US Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday that Tennessee could proceed with its first execution of a woman in 200 years, clearing the way for Christa Pike to be put to death by lethal injection for murdering a schoolmate three decades ago.

The Tennessee correction department said in a statement to Reuters afterwards that it planned “to move forward with the execution today”.

Pike, 50, whose clemency petition highlighting childhood trauma and sexual abuse was denied by Governor Bill Lee on Monday, would also be the only person in the modern era of US capital punishment to be executed in Tennessee for a crime committed as a teenager.

In an order decided by its 6-3 conservative majority, the Supreme Court lifted a temporary stay of execution that had been granted by a three-judge panel of the 6th US Circuit Court of Appeals one hour before Pike had been scheduled to be put to death.

The appellate panel voted 2-1 to order a “short stay” to allow time to weigh Pike’s claim that evidence of her childhood sexual abuse were not adequately considered during her sentencing.

Pike’s lawyers argued that the sentencing should be reopened because the state’s attorneys had conceded in court for the first time, at a hearing in August, that Pike had suffered from sexual abuse, including rape, as a child.

But the Tennessee attorney general’s office immediately asked the US Supreme Court to vacate the stay. And the high court’s decision siding with Tennessee marked the final word on whether the execution was permitted to go forward, so long as it takes place before her death warrant expires at midnight CDT.

The state correction department did not specify a precise new time frame for the execution, which was set to take place at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville, the state capital.

If the state were to run out of time to conduct the execution, it would need to obtain a new warrant from the Tennessee Supreme Court, according to Robin Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center.

Pike was 18 in January 1995 when she, a 17-year-old boyfriend and a third companion lured 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, a classmate at their Knoxville Job Corps vocational centre, into a wooded area where they tortured and killed her.

Trial testimony indicated that Pike viewed Slemmer as a rival for the affections of her boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp.

Pike and Shipp confessed to the killing, and both were convicted the following year of first-degree murder. Pike was sentenced to death, while Shipp received a life sentence with the possibility of parole.

Their co-defendant, Shadolla Peterson, who was 18 at the time of the murder and had acted as a lookout for the other two, appeared as a witness for the prosecution and received probation.

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