A woman on death row in Tennessee remains in a critical condition, unconscious and on a ventilator in hospital following a botched execution attempt earlier this week.
The 50-year-old inmate, identified in reports as Christa Pike, was rushed to a Nashville hospital on Wednesday night after a failed attempt to execute her by lethal injection.
Officers at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville, Tennessee, allegedly administered a second dose of the lethal drug pentobarbital after the first injection reportedly left her gasping for air while still conscious and apparently in pain, according to a witness account.
Pike had spent more than 26 years on death row after being convicted of first-degree murder.
She was 18 in 1995 when she moved to Tennessee after being accepted into a security training programme. Shortly afterwards, she and a group of accomplices tortured and killed 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in Knoxville.
Pike was arrested, tried and convicted of first-degree murder in 1996 before being sentenced to death.
Following the failed execution, her lawyers confirmed that she was alive but in a critical condition.
“We don’t have a sense of her prognosis or much update on her health at the moment, but we do know that she is alive right now,” her lawyer, Randy Spivey, said this week.
Her legal team is now seeking to have her death sentence commuted to life imprisonment.
Spivey said Pike had endured significant suffering during the failed procedure.
“I counted at least seven needles used in her left arm alone, one of which appeared to be bent when it was pulled from her arm after an unsuccessful attempt,” he said.
If Pike recovers, her case could raise significant legal questions about the constitutionality of a second execution attempt.
Although Tennessee law reportedly allows authorities to make another attempt in certain circumstances, her lawyers could argue that administering two doses of the lethal drug amounts to two separate attempts to execute her. Such an argument could raise questions about double jeopardy and the legality of any further execution attempt.
Her legal team is expected to draw on previous cases in which death-row inmates had their sentences commuted to life imprisonment following failed execution attempts.
Retired journalist Michael Graczyk, who covered nearly 500 executions during his career in Texas, was reportedly present during the failed procedure. He said he had never witnessed an inmate survive a lethal injection.
Graczyk, who continued reporting on executions after retiring from The Associated Press in 2018, recalled two occasions when needles became dislodged before being reinserted and the executions were subsequently completed.
However, he had never encountered a case in which an inmate survived.
The incident in Tennessee involved the administration of two separate doses of pentobarbital, a barbiturate used in the state’s lethal injection protocol. Reports indicate that Pike was still breathing and audibly snoring following the injections.
Graczyk, 76, said the incident did not entirely surprise him, noting that he had considered the possibility of such an outcome during his decades-long career.
“It seems to me it was just a matter of time,” he was quoted as saying by BBC News.
Following Wednesday night’s failed execution, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee halted executions in the state and ordered an independent review of the procedures.
Botched executions have attracted increasing scrutiny over the past decade, particularly following shortages of drugs used in lethal injections. These shortages have prompted some states to change their drug protocols or seek supplies from less transparent sources. Other states have also reinstated alternative execution methods, including firing squads.
The United States has a long history of failed executions, with reports documenting numerous cases involving complications such as prolonged suffering, unsuccessful procedures and unexpected survival.
The incident has renewed questions about the reliability, safety and ethics of lethal injection as a method of execution.