Christa Pike’s lawyers pleaded for alternative execution method weeks before ‘failed’ lethal injection

Christa Pike’s lawyers had allegedly attempted to change the method of execution prior to her failed lethal injection attempt on 30 September.

Pike has been the only woman on death row in Tennessee for the last three decades and was set to become the first to be executed in the state in over 200 years.

However, despite the fact she has been locked up since 1996 after killing her classmate, Colleen Slemmer, Pike’s legal team have tried time and time again to stop the planned death from occurring.

Pike, who was 18 at the time, was convicted of killing Slemmer, with her then-boyfriend, 17-year-old Tadaryl Shipp.

She was sentenced to death, but quickly appealed her case.

However, soon after, she requested to be put to death in a different manner than what was assigned to her – the lethal injection.

Christa Pike has spent 30 years on death row for the murder of a classmate (Knox County Sheriff's Department)

Even last year, her legal team launched a lawsuit in the Davidson County Chancery Court claiming that this execution method 'vio­lates her con­sti­tu­tion­al rights and con­flicts with her reli­gious beliefs’.

Tennessee’s use of pen­to­bar­bi­tal was something her lawyers explained in their lawsuit against the state was a big problem for her.

They told the Nashville Banner: "First, given Christa’s unique medical conditions, we have serious reservations about the State of Tennessee’s ability to prevent a tortuous execution.”

Second, they noted that the State’s protocol fails to make a contingency plan for when things go wrong... such as in the case of if two doses of the injection fail to kill her.

Their third qualm was that the state requires a prisoner to select electrocution if they want to avoid being separated from the rest of the prison for two weeks leading to their death.

Pike's lawsuit argued there was a 'sub­stan­tial risk that she will expe­ri­ence unnec­es­sary super­added pain and suf­fer­ing, ter­ror, and disgrace', especially because of her health conditions.

The suit claimed she has a blood-clotting condition known as thrombocytopenia - which lawyers claimed would leave her 'drowning in her own blood' and that she also has 'small veins that make insertion of a needle difficult'.

Because of this, Pike sought a per­ma­nent injunc­tion against use of the new exe­cu­tion pro­to­col, and to create a contingency plan which creates life-sav­ing pro­ce­dures if the exe­cu­tion goes wrong.

But this was denied.

Pike, pictured in 1995, is receiving life-saving medical care in hospital (WBIR10)

Again, months later in July it was reported her lawyers wanted the execution stopped because of her ‘youth and severe mental illness at the time of the crime'.

Pike's attorneys also argued that the failed attempt to execute Tony Carruthers this year is evidence of this.

He's since been granted a one-year reprieve after an IV line wasn’t able to be established.

In August, there was a three-day evidentiary hearing, which concluded on August 13 this year, to determine whether Pike’s health was enough to stop her IV death and if a different lethal injection process, or hanging, would meaningfully reduce her risk of experiencing unconstitutional pain.

Pike proposed alternative methods of execution, per the Death Penalty Information Center, which included a ‘butterfly’ 23-gauge needle, which would need to be ‘inserted by qualified and trained medical staff, is a feasible and readily implemented alternative that significantly reduces the substantial risk of unnecessary pain and suffering posed by the current protocol.’

Or hanging as a second alternative.

“Hanging significantly reduces a substantial risk of unnecessary and severe or superadded pain, terror, and disgrace when compared to the current protocol,” said her council.

However, this was also denied.

As of now, Pike’s condition is unknown after she was hospitalised due to the failed lethal injection attempt after two doses were injected into her arm.