Tennessee death row inmate Christa Pike was taken to an off-site hospital after an attempted execution in which she received two doses of pentobarbital, according to her lawyer and state officials.
Pike’s attorney told the BBC that the 50-year-old was receiving life-saving measures at the hospital. Her legal team said she had lost consciousness but still had a heartbeat and was audibly snoring during the execution process.
The attempted execution began at about 20:00 local time on Wednesday at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville. The Associated Press reported that two syringes of pentobarbital were administered and that the curtain separating witnesses from the execution chamber was closed twice. Media representatives were asked to leave at one point, according to the news agency.
Emergency court action
Pike’s lawyers filed an emergency request to halt the execution and provide medical treatment while the process was under way. District Judge Clifton L. Corker noted in a ruling that medical personnel had begun administering the care requested in the motion.
In a statement to the Tennessean, Pike’s legal team said Tennessee had again failed to carry out a lawful execution. The lawyers cited concerns including difficult vein access, blown veins, allegedly degraded pentobarbital and the availability of emergency medical care. They also criticised the secrecy surrounding the state’s execution protocol.
The Tennessee Department of Correction said it had followed every part of the state protocol approved by the attorney general’s office. Spokesperson Dorinda Carter said the lethal-injection chemical had consistently been effective and that the protocol did not permit procedures beyond those undertaken on Wednesday evening. She confirmed that Pike had been transported to a medical facility.
Dr Joel Zivot, an Emory University School of Medicine professor retained by Pike’s legal team as a medical expert, said she likely did not reach a sufficient blood concentration of pentobarbital to cause apnoea and cardiovascular failure. In an email to the BBC, he said a delay before resuscitation could result in a brain injury, though the outcome was not known.
Case background
Pike was sentenced to death in 1996 for the murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer. She was 18 when she and her then-boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, beat, tortured and killed Slemmer after the three met at a job-training camp for troubled teenagers.
The execution proceeded after the US Supreme Court overturned a reprieve issued by a lower court on Wednesday. Pike’s lawyers had argued that jurors were not able to consider mitigating evidence concerning her documented history of childhood sexual abuse before imposing the death sentence. Tennessee’s governor had denied Pike’s clemency request earlier in the week.
Source: BBC News
