Washington, Oct 1. (dpa/GNA) – The scheduled execution of US death row inmate, Christa Pike in Tennessee, failed on Wednesday, with the 50-year-old still alive after receiving two doses of lethal injection drugs.
Pike was due to become the first woman to be executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years.
Witnesses to the execution reported that “the executioners had injected both syringes of lethal injection chemicals”, and Pike was “still alive and snoring,” according to a court document.
Judge Kyle Hixson said prison authorities ordered emergency medical treatment and her transfer to a hospital. Her condition was not immediately known.
The Tennessee Department of Correction, which was responsible for the execution, said it had followed its procedures. “The Tennessee Department of Correction followed every step of the State’s lawful, established execution protocol approved by the Attorney General’s Office,” it said in a statement. “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. Christa Pike has been transported to an off-site medical facility.”
Governor, Bill Lee, ordered a review of the incident, and cancelled another execution due to take place later this year.
“Tonight, the State of Tennessee once again failed to carry out a lawful execution,” Pike’s attorneys said in a statement to US media outlets, including the Tennessean newspaper.
“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 execution at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville, followed a last-minute legal battle, with the US Supreme Court overturning a stay imposed by a lower court.
The appeals court had ruled that more time was needed to consider Pike’s claims, that trauma and abuse she said she suffered as a child, had not been properly taken into account in earlier proceedings.
Pike argued that Tennessee had initially dismissed her claims of abuse as fabricated, before later acknowledging that she had suffered abuse.
Tennessee, meanwhile, accused Pike’s lawyers of deliberately using last-minute legal action to delay the execution. The state argued that the severity of the murder meant that evidence of childhood trauma, would not have prevented a death sentence.
The Supreme Court granted Tennessee’s emergency request to allow the execution to proceed, without providing a reason. The court’s three liberal justices, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissented.
“Tennessee now asks this Court to vacate that stay and permit it to proceed with Pike’s execution today. Stunningly, the Court acquiesces,” Sotomayor wrote. “Because its decision clears the way for the State to execute Pike before her still-pending legal challenges to her conviction can be properly considered, I respectfully dissent.”
Sotomayor described the court’s action as “extraordinary,” arguing there was no reason to bypass the normal review process, particularly given the grave consequences of an erroneous decision.
Pike was sentenced to death in 1996 for the murder of a 19-year-old acquaintance. She was 18 at the time of the crime.
In 1995, Pike and two other teenagers tortured and killed the victim in a secluded area near the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.
Pike was the only woman on Tennessee’s death row, according to the state’s official website. She would have been the first woman executed in the state since 1819.
The death penalty is legal in more than two dozen US states, though it is often no longer carried out in practice. Only around 2% of death row inmates are women.
According to the Death Penalty Information Center, 18 women have been executed in the United States since 1976, representing about 1% of all executions.
This year, 28 people had been executed in the US as of September 24, according to the non-profit organization.
Two-thirds of US adults 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 the death penalty does not deter people from committing serious crimes.
GNA