Christa Pike expected to remain on death row despite botched execution attempt
The Tennessee governor has given an update on the future of Christa Pike following her botched execution attempt at the end of September.
It's been nearly a month since the convicted killer was due to die on death row but things went south when despite finding a vein, the usually-deadly pentobarbital failed to have its usual impact.
Although the family of Colleen Slemmer had gathered to witness Pike's death, she somehow survived the injection and was rushed to hospital after her legal team filed an urgent appeal to halt the execution.
Pike was rushed to hospital and soon regained the ability to walk and talk before she was eventually discharged on 10 October, and naturally questions soon turned to what would happen next.
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Now, Tennessee's governor Bill Lee has shared what he expects to happen to the 50-year-old, who has spent over 30 years behind bars following her conviction in 1996.
He said: “As it related to a particular individual like Christa Pike and her crime, she’s still incarcerated under the laws of the state of Tennessee.
“I suspect her sentence will be the same as before unless determined otherwise by the courts.”
Pike's lawyers have suggested that she endured 'punishment greater than any other person in the history of the American death penalty', and have called for her sentence to be removed.
However, Slemmer's mother May Martinez has suggested that she's owed a 'big apology' after Pike's execution failed and made it clear that she still wants the death sentence to be carried out.
She told First Coast News: “She killed my daughter and I don’t want to see another child or another person hurt like she did."
Following the first attempt on her life, the Tennessee Department of Correction said in a statement that they 'followed every step of the State’s lawful, established execution protocol approved by the Attorney General’s Office' and claimed that the lethal injection chemical 'has consistently been effective' for death penalties.
At first, it was thought that Pike could be brain dead before she shocked everyone to wake up on 6 October, but her medical situation is still being monitored in prison following her discharge.
Robin Maher, the executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, expressed outrage at the botched execution to the New York Times, saying: “This event is the worst we’ve seen and unlike any other botched execution in the modern era. There is no precedent.”
Lee is due to leave his post in January and has paused all other executions in the state until the new year, following last month's fiasco, but while the decision might take some time, he seems confident that there will be another execution attempted.
James Moorhouse