Possible outcomes for what could happen next as Christa Pike released from hospital after botched execution
Christa Pike is back in prison, which raises questions about what happens next.
The inmate, who is on death row for the 1995 beating and stabbing death of classmate Colleen Slemmer, survived two doses of pentobarbital during an attempted execution last month (30 September).
On Saturday, the 50-year-old was discharged from hospital and is now back at the Debra K Johnson Rehabilitation Centre, the women’s prison where she was housed for 30 years.
“She is grateful to the first responders and her medical team for their care in these extraordinary circumstances. She is continuing to receive medical care at the prison, and we will continue to track her recovery,” her lawyers said in a statement.
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The Tennessee Department of Correction has not said what went wrong in the execution, while various medical experts have focused on whether a problem with the IV line caused the drug to pool in her tissue instead of entering her bloodstream.
Pike’s lawyers wrote in a court filing that ‘apparently at no point did any member of the execution team realise that the IV lines were not correctly placed’.
What happens next?
Three possible outcomes for her case are a second execution attempt using a different method, another attempt using lethal injection, or commuting her sentence.
But any second execution attempt could face significant constitutional challenges, according to Charley Dugdale, Associate Head of Law and Associate Professor at St Mary’s University Twickenham.
Dugdale tells LADbible that ‘existing US precedent suggests that a state may be permitted to make a second attempt’.
“In Louisiana ex rel Francis v Resweber (1947), the Supreme Court allowed Louisiana to try again after an electric-chair execution failed which the Court treated as an unforeseeable mechanical accident. This does not necessarily answer Pike’s case, but if Tennessee seeks another execution date, her lawyers could challenge it on several grounds,” she says.
How Pike's lawyers can challenge a second execution attempt
Dugdale details seven ways Pike's lawyers can appeal against another execution:
- An Eighth Amendment claim based on the physical and psychological effects of the first attempt.
- An argument that another lethal injection would expose Pike to a substantial risk of severe pain.
- A challenge based on Pike’s medical conditions and what happened during the first attempt.
- A request to prevent another execution until Tennessee discloses the findings of its investigation.
- Due process arguments concerning transparency and Pike’s ability to challenge a new execution plan.
- A challenge to any attempt to use the same protocol without meaningful changes.
- A competency claim if the failed execution caused injuries affecting Pike’s ability to understand the nature and purpose of the punishment.
“The legal significance of the investigation will therefore be considerable. What caused the first failure, and what Tennessee proposes to do differently, are likely to be central to any future litigation,” she adds.
Why Pike is on death row
At the age of 18, she carried out what a judge called the ‘horrific’ and ‘brutal’ murder of Colleen Slemmer in Knoxville in 1995.
Pike and two friends lured the 19-year-old into the woods, where they beat, tortured, and killed her. Pike was sentenced to death at the age of 20.
Her legal team argued that her death sentence was disproportionate due to her severe childhood trauma, while Assistant Federal Defender Stephen Ferrell said 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.”
Anish Vij