Washington, Sept 30. (dpa/GNA) – A US appeals court has halted the planned execution of death row inmate Christa Pike, in Tennessee, just hours before she was due to become the first woman to be executed in almost 200 years.
The court ruled that Pike raised doubts about the legality of the previous proceedings that needed to be examined. The central issue is the court’s assessment of the trauma Pike said she suffered as a child.
Pike, 50, was sentenced to death in 1996, for the murder of a 19-year-old acquaintance. She was 18 at the time of the crime.
The last time a woman was executed in Tennessee was in 1819.
The death penalty is legal in more than two dozen US states, though it is often no longer carried out in practice.
Only 2% of those on death row are women. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, 18 women have been executed since 1976, representing about 1% of all executions.
This year, 28 offenders have been executed in the US up to September 24, according to the non-profit.
Two-thirds of adults in the US support the death penalty for people convicted of murder, according to a recent representative survey by the Pew Research Center.
At the same time, 59% believe that the death penalty does not help to deter people from committing serious crimes.
GNA