Uncertainty looms over her fate as Christa Pike returns to prison after botched execution attempt: What we know | Today’s news
Convicted murderer Christa Pike, the 50-year-old woman who survived a botched execution attempt in Tennessee last week, was released from hospital and returned to prison on Saturday (local time), her lawyers said.
Pike was given two doses of pentobarbital on September 30 after a court approved her execution by lethal injection. But the doses, usually considered lethal, did not kill her, making her the only inmate to ever survive after being injected with a lethal dose of execution drugs, AFP reported, citing the Death Penalty Information Center (DPI).
In 1995, she was convicted of the brutal murder of her classmate, 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer. Pike, then 18, tortured and killed Slemmer, hacking her for about an hour with a meat cleaver and a box cutter in a wooded area of the University of Tennessee campus with the help of her boyfriend and a friend.
Christa Pike Returns to Prison After Botched Execution: What We Know
On Saturday, she was taken back to the Deborah K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center in Nashville, where she was being held before her botched execution attempt.
In a statement, her attorneys said, “Christa Pike has been released from a local hospital and is now at the Deborah K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center, where she has been housed for more than 30 years,” adding, “She is grateful to the first responders and her medical team for their care during these extraordinary circumstances.” The statement went on to say that Pike “continues to receive medical care at the prison and we will continue to monitor her recovery.”
On Tuesday, her lawyers said she had regained consciousness and was able to speak from her hospital bed. On Wednesday, according to her team, she began “taking limited steps” with help. On Thursday, her lawyers announced further progress and said she was walking “with some assistance”.
What’s next for Christa Pike?
As Pike returns to a rehab facility in Nashville, her future remains uncertain. Her legal team challenged Protocol IV. execution and asked to be executed by firing squad. After that request was denied and a subsequent execution attempt foiled, her lawyers again called on Tennessee Governor Bill Lee to commute her death sentence to life without parole, which would have prevented a second execution attempt.
According to CBS News, her lawyers said commuting is standard procedure after an inmate survives a botched execution.
The Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibits “cruel and unusual punishment,” but it remains unclear whether Tennessee will try to execute Pike again.
On Wednesday, one of her lawyers told the court: “The State has not promised that Ms. Pike will not be executed in the future.”
For now, Pike continues to receive medical care in prison while her lawyers ask for clemency and wait for clarity on whether the state will proceed with another execution attempt.
