Why Did Inmate Christa Pike Survive Lethal Injection and What Exactly Went Wrong During Execution?

Christa Pike survived Tennessee's attempt to execute her by lethal injection on Wednesday and was receiving life-saving medical care in critical condition on Thursday, her attorneys reported, according to CNN. Why the procedure failed remains unresolved.

Pike was sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer and had been due to become the first woman executed in Tennessee in 200 years. Governor Bill Lee announced he would call off the state's remaining execution this year while a third-party review seeks to 'determine what exactly occurred', The Associated Press reported, according to CNN.

Christa Pike Remained Alive After Lethal Injection

Last-minute legal appeals delayed Pike's scheduled Wednesday-morning execution until later that day. Media witnesses reported that the protocol began in the early evening and that she delivered her final words at 7:26pm.

Her attorneys reported that she received two ostensibly fatal doses of pentobarbital. Witnesses observed that she was snoring and appeared to be alive afterwards. Her lawyers declined to provide further medical details on Thursday.

'None of it was normal,' WPLN reporter Catherine Sweeney stated. 'I covered all the executions last year, and most of the ones this year. We haven't seen anything like it. It went really poorly.'

The Tennessee Department of Correction maintained that it followed every step of the state's protocol, which it described as lawful and approved by the Attorney General's Office.

Its Wednesday statement continued, 'The lethal injection chemical in the protocol has consistently been effective, and the protocol does not allow for additional procedures beyond what was carried out this evening.'

Why Christa Pike's Execution Is Under Review

Lee previously paused executions for a review in 2022. Earlier this year, Tennessee failed to complete another lethal injection after personnel struggled to find a vein.

Pike's lawyers had warned the court that her vein issues would complicate the procedure. Randy Spivey, one of her attorneys, called for Lee to commute her sentence, arguing that a protocol review was insufficient.

Spivey and Kelly Gleason alleged several failures in a statement. 'We take no pleasure in being right, but the concerns raised by Ms. Pike proved to be true: difficult vein access, blown veins, degraded pentobarbital, no emergency medical care available when things inevitably go wrong, all under a protocol that remains veiled in secrecy.'

The cause of the failed execution remains unresolved. The office of Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti supported the governor's investigation, stating, 'We need to know what happened.'

What Christa Pike's Survival Means for Her Case

Austin Sarat, an Amherst College professor and author of books on the death penalty and lethal injection, explained that an execution failing outright was exceedingly rare.

Pike's legal future remains unclear. Sarat outlined precedents involving inmates who survived execution attempts. Willie Francis survived a malfunctioning electric-chair execution in Louisiana, challenged a second attempt on constitutional grounds and died in a second execution after the US Supreme Court rejected his appeal.

In 2009, Ohio personnel could not establish an IV line for Romell Broom. The Ohio Supreme Court ruled in 2016 that another attempt would not violate double-jeopardy protections because establishing the line was only a 'preliminary step' to execution.

Broom died of Covid-19 in 2020 while still on death row, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, cited by CNN.

Sarat distinguished Pike's case because the lethal drugs entered her system. 'So we're in kind of unprecedented territory with Pike in the sense of she survived her execution,' he stated.