Tennessee Judge Orders Evidence Preserved After Christa Pike Survives Lethal Injection and Wakes in Hospital
Christa Pike, who survived Tennessee's Sept. 30 lethal injection, woke up Tuesday after lawyers were told she was brain dead, and a Nashville judge on Wednesday ordered the state to preserve all evidence from the failed execution.
A Nashville judge on Wednesday ordered Tennessee to preserve all evidence from the failed Sept. 30 execution of Christa Pike, one day after the death row inmate unexpectedly woke up and began speaking in the hospital following two doses of the lethal injection drug pentobarbital.
Chancellor I’Ashea Myles granted the emergency request from Pike’s attorneys and directed that everything in the death chamber be preserved and maintained, along with surveillance footage, handwritten notes, witness accounts and encrypted communications, according to coverage of the hearing in Davidson County Chancery Court. A Tennessee assistant attorney general told the court there is currently no pending execution order for Pike.
Pike, 50, had been set to become the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years. She was sentenced to death for the 1995 killing of her 19-year-old classmate Colleen Slemmer. After the failed execution at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville, she was hospitalized, initially unconscious and in critical condition.
Lawyers describe confusion, injuries and an uncertain recovery
Her attorney Randy Spivey said the legal team was told Monday night that Pike was brain dead and that life support would be removed the next day, but she woke up Tuesday and began talking. Spivey said she has a blood clot in one arm, has pneumonia, cannot swallow and has not eaten, and described severe swelling in her hands. In court, attorney Luke Ihnen said Pike is speaking only in a limited way. The Associated Press reported that Pike is believed to be the first person to survive after receiving lethal injection drugs during an execution.
Gov. Bill Lee has halted the state’s remaining executions this year and ordered an independent review of what happened. The corrections commissioner, Frank Strada, resigned on Oct. 3. Pike’s lawyers are asking the governor to commute her sentence and are seeking to revive a January lawsuit challenging the state’s lethal injection protocol, arguing the preserved evidence would be relevant to any future challenge.
Reporting based on coverage by USA Today, the New York Post, The Tennessean and the Associated Press.
