Failed execution puts Tennessee’s capital punishment process under scrutiny

Christa Pike is conscious and speaking in hospital after surviving Tennessee’s failed lethal injection attempt on 30 September, her lawyers say. She remains in critical care, and her prognosis is unclear.

Her lawyers are due in court on Wednesday to seek an order preserving execution records and other evidence, including drug lot numbers, needles and execution logs. They have also called for her death sentence to be commuted to life without parole.

The Tennessee Department of Correction’s protocol provides for a second dose if the first does not result in death, but does not specify what should happen if the second dose also fails. The cause of the failed attempt has not been established. Pike’s lawyers allege the execution team did not recognise that the intravenous lines were incorrectly placed.

Governor Bill Lee has ordered a third-party review of what happened and postponed the state’s other scheduled execution. It remains unclear whether, or when, Tennessee will try to execute Pike again.

Pike was sentenced to death for her role in the 1995 murder of classmate Colleen Slemmer, when Pike was 18. Before the execution attempt, her lawyers sought an alternative method, citing her small veins and thrombocytosis.