Christa Pike's lawyers warn medics could refuse to treat her if second execution order is made

Doctors caring for Christa Pike could refuse to continue with her treatment, her legal team’s medic has said.

Pike, 50, survived two doses of pentobarbital as Tennessee officials attempted to put her to death on 30 September.

In an update yesterday, Pike’s legal team said that ‘against all odds’ she was ‘conscious and speaking’.

Today (Wednesday 7 October), Dr Joel Zivot, the anaesthesiologist advising her team, shared more details on her condition.

"She has some memories of being in the hospital but no memory, I believe, of the execution attempt," he told the BBC.

He said she can recall her name and communicate but when asked the date she believed it was still September.

In a new interview with The Sun, Dr Zivot has warned that medics treating Pike could refuse to continue with her care if they are only improving her health 'for the purposes of future punishment'.

Christa Pike is awake and speaking, her legal team have said (Inside Edition)

“The medical team are at cross purposes,” he said.

“On the one hand, it’s a doctor’s job to restore a patient to health.

“On the other hand, a doctor is prevented ethically from seeking to improve someone’s health for the purposes of future punishment.

“And that’s where the unprecedented facts of this case lie.”

He also said that if Pike recovers to a certain degree she could face the death penalty again.

He told The Sun: “If Christa Pike is returned to her normal neurologic self – that is to know who she is and what she’s done – she faces the prospect of another execution attempt.

“But if she has suffered some permanent cognitive decline, that makes it more difficult for her to know, then that may be exculpatory.”

Explaining what he believes went wrong during the execution attempt, Dr Zivot said that the drug ‘simply did not make it sufficiently into her circulation’ to kill Pike.

It’s thought that most of the pentobarbital accumulated under Pike’s skin, rather than going into her blood stream.

Dr Zivot said a ‘little bit’ got into her circulation as it ‘altered her mental state’.

Will Christa Pike's execution be rescheduled?

It is not currently known if Pike, who has spent the last three decades on death row, will face execution again.

Dr Paul A Lucas, an associate professor at East Carolina University, has said the third-party review into what went wrong that has been ordered by Tennessee Governor Bill Lee will likely determine 'what happens next'.

"If the investigation identifies problems with how the protocol was implemented the state may focus on correcting those procedures," he said to ABC News.

"If officials followed the protocol as written and the execution nevertheless failed, that could raise more fundamental questions about the protocol itself.

"Either way, I would expect the circumstances surrounding Ms Pike's failed execution to receive significant scrutiny before Tennessee resumes executions."

Fordham Law professor Deborah Denno told NBC that Pike's legal team could argue that attempting to execute her again could qualify as cruel and unusual punishment. They could also argue that a second execution attempt would constitute double jeopardy, i.e. being punished for the same crime twice.

She said: "They carried out every aspect of the execution. She didn’t die, but every process they intended, they did it."

Why was Christa Pike given the death penalty?

Pike was sent to death row for the murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in 1995.

Colleen Slemmer was killed by Christa Pike (Family Handout)

On 12 January 1995, an 18-year-old Pike, her then-boyfriend Tadaryl Shipp, and friend Shadolla Peterson lured Slemmer to a secluded woodland in Knoxville.

According to court documents, Pike and Shipp then brutally attacked Slemmer, while Peterson kept watch.

The beating lasted around 30 minutes, and saw them carve a pentagram into Slemmer’s chest, before Pike then killed the 19-year-old by delivering a fatal blow to the head, court documents claimed.

During her incarceration, Pike’s legal team argued that she should not have been given the death penalty due to her age when committing the crime and her troubled background.

Assistant Federal Defender Stephen Ferrell said she was abused as a child and was later diagnosed with bipolar disorder and post traumatic stress disorder.

In her clemency petition, Pike wrote: “I was a mentally ill 18-year-old kid. It took me numerous years to even realise the gravity of what I’d done. Even more to accept how many lives I affected. I took the life of someone’s child, sister, friend. It sickens me now to think I had the ability to commit such a crime.”