By Cassandra Stephenson, Tennessee Lookout
The Wednesday execution of Tennessee death row inmate Christa Pike was halted after the state of Tennessee administered two failed rounds of its lethal injection protocol and an anti-death penalty group filed an emergency appeal to end the execution and get Pike medical care.
The botched execution spanned more than two hours, according to media witnesses. Pike was still making audible “snoring” sounds when witnesses were told to exit the building about 40 minutes after the curtains to the execution chamber closed for the second time.
Pike was taken by ambulance to a hospital for treatment, according to a spokesperson for the U.S. Campaign to End the Death Penalty, but the group did not know her medical status. Witnesses reported seeing ambulances pulling up to Riverbend Maximum Security Prison in Nashville, the site of the execution, and leaving with lights on.
Media witnesses described a scene of confusion.
“Very obviously, we have a lot of questions about what we saw and what we did not see, because there were moments when the blinds were down for us, and there were moments when the blinds were up for us,” said John North, investigative producer for WBIR TV in Knoxville. “It appeared that this did not go like they thought it was supposed to go, but we don’t know that.”
“When we left the building, so far as we knew, she was probably still alive,” North said. “You just saw the emergency vehicles pull up. We don’t know her status, and I think it’s fair to say … we have a lot of questions, and the Department of Correction has a lot of answers that it needs to provide to the public about what happened here.”
“The Tennessee Department of Correction followed every step of the State’s lawful, established execution protocol approved by the Attorney General’s Office,” department Communications Director Dorinda Carter stated more than two hours after the failed execution. “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.”
Tennessee’s lethal injection protocol stipulates that a second round of injections be performed if the inmate is not determined to be deceased after the first set is administered. It does not specify what happens if the second set also fails.
Federal defense attorneys for Pike filed an emergency motion with the U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of Tennessee to halt the execution and order immediate medical care.
Pike’s attorneys also filed a motion to halt the execution in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit at 10:20 p.m.
“Since the botched execution in May of this year, people from diverse political backgrounds across Tennessee have called for a pause in executions to examine the problems with the execution process. These pleas were ignored. The state of Tennessee has shown the world it cannot be trusted to implement capital punishment in a way that preserves human dignity and the rule of law. This has to stop now,” said Laura Porter, the anti-death penalty group’s executive director.
The U.S. Supreme Court vacated the temporary stay of Christa Pike’s execution Wednesday evening, allowing the state of Tennessee to move forward with her death by lethal injection for the 1995 murder of Colleen Slemmer.
“I’ve witnessed, I believe, five executions in Tennessee,” said Tori Gessner with WKRN News 2 in Nashville. “Nothing about today was normal, typical at all, and the court delay was just the tip of the iceberg.”
Pike was set to be executed at 10 a.m. Wednesday before a federal appeals court temporarily halted the execution to review Pike’s history of sexual abuse and neglect as a child, which Pike’s lawyers say was not adequately addressed during the penalty phase in her original trial.
Pike, 50, was set to be the first female put to death in Tennessee in nearly two centuries.
Pike was 18 years old when she and her then-17-year-old boyfriend Tadaryl Shipp tortured and killed 19-year-old Slemmer in a wooded area in Knoxville. Shipp, ineligible for the death penalty because of his age, got a life sentence.
Slemmer’s mother, May Martinez, described her daughter as compassionate, playful and a “good nerd” in a recent interview with WBIR Knoxville.
Witnesses entered the witness chamber at 6:41 p.m. and waited for nearly an hour, something media witnesses who have covered prior executions in Tennessee said was atypical. During that time, they described hearing groaning and crying, though the microphone inside the execution chamber was not yet turned on and the curtain remained closed.
The curtain opened for the first time at 7:26 p.m.
In Pike’s final statement, she said she was “going to leave this world the way I spent most of my life, and that is in love,” Kim Chandler of AP reported. “She said she had love for the people who were out here hating on her.”
“She closed her statement with saying, ‘I’m at peace. I’m ready to be free,’ then something about celebrating her freedom, and then she closed with, ‘This is a happy day,’” Chandler said.
Pike said “My arm feels like it’s about to burst open” at 7:34 p.m., Gessner said.
Will Puckett of WVLT Knoxville described Pike blinking, smiling and letting out “a couple of laughs during this process.”
“I saw a tear roll down (from) her right eye, and then she said, ‘one spot is really throbbing,’” Puckett said.
Pike began to speak less and take big breaths, and lifted her head up at 7:39 p.m. Throughout the process, Pike “was kicking her feet so often that she was actually knocking the sheet that laid over her off,” Puckett said.
An employee placed a rock in view of witnesses for the first time at 7:41 p.m. and 30 seconds. Media witnesses at other executions said this is part of the state’s process, and while it’s unclear exactly what the rock signifies, it’s typical for subjects to appear “comatose” by the time the rock is placed. But Pike’s jaws were moving, and she said something three minutes later, then opened her mouth wide “like a very large yawn.”
The curtain dropped for the first time at 7:46 p.m., before opening back up three minutes later. Pike began to sound as if she were loudly snoring, media witnesses said. Her spiritual adviser was brought back into the room.
Puckett described Pike’s lip quivering and Pike making sounds “like she was almost choking.” Pike continued making snoring sounds and at 7:54 p.m. she grunted, lifted her head and opened her mouth, Puckett said.
Two minutes later, “her body lifted off the gurney again, both her head and her legs” in a “v” shape, Puckett said.
The rock was placed for a second time at 8:01 p.m. and six seconds. Media witnesses reported Pike continued breathing and making snoring sounds, flexing her head and neck.
The curtain closed for the final time at 8:05 p.m., and media witnesses said Pike snored in a consistent, rhythmic pattern interspersed with the sounds of doors opening and closing until 8:53 p.m., when witnesses were escorted out.
“I cannot emphasize enough how much of whatever just happened, happened behind a closed curtain,” Steven Hale of the Nashville Banner said. “When Christa Pike was still alive, we could still hear her breathing, but we could not see what was going on.”
Before Wednesday’s last-minute pause, the nation’s highest court and Gov. Bill Lee, a Republican, had declined to intervene to stop Pike’s execution.
The three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit stayed Pike’s execution Wednesday morning because more time was needed to “adequately address and resolve the issues” brought by Pike’s lawyers, the ruling stated.
The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the state’s request to proceed with the execution late Wednesday in response to the Tennessee attorney general’s appeal of the 6th Circuit panel’s temporary stay. Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented.
“The Court’s decision to vacate that stay interferes with the Sixth Circuit’s routine administrative handling of a capital case and unnecessarily prevents that court from giving due consideration to Pike’s claim,” Sotomayor wrote in the dissenting opinion. “Worse, the Court grants such extraordinary relief solely to allow the state to execute Pike before litigation over her conviction has properly run its course in the lower courts.”
“I see no reason to short-circuit the ordinary process of appellate review, particularly in light of the grave consequences of an erroneous decision,” Sotomayor continued. “Tennessee’s desire to expedite Pike’s execution by a few days or even weeks cannot outweigh her ‘fundamental interest in (her) own life.’”
Pike’s execution is the latest to be botched by the Tennessee Department of Correction.
In May, Gov. Bill Lee called off the execution of Tony Von Carruthers after a physician tried for more than an hour to insert backup and central intravenous lines on Carruthers, as required by protocol. Witnesses called it bloody “torture.”
This is a developing story and may be updated.
Sam Stockard, Adam Friedman and J. Holly McCall contributed to this report.
