Following the failed execution of death row inmate Christa Pike, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee said an investigation is needed to determine what went wrong. The case has drawn reactions from pro-life advocates and from both opponents and supporters of the death penalty. Pike’s execution on Wednesday did not go as planned. She remained alive after receiving two syringes of lethal injection chemicals.
State officials later told the Tennessee Supreme Court that Pike was being taken to a hospital for medical care. Pike was sentenced to death for the 1995 torture and murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, a fellow Job Corps student. Advocates such as Laura Porter, executive director of the U.S. Campaign to End the Death Penalty, had urged Lee, a Republican, to suspend executions after the botched execution of Tony Carruthers in May.
“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,” Porter said in a statement provided to The Christian Post. “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,” she continued.
“This has to stop now.” Lee has ordered an investigation into Pike’s failed execution and postponed the Dec. 3 execution of convicted killer Gary Wayne Sutton. “Carrying out a lawfully imposed sentence is among the State’s most serious responsibilities, and the people of Tennessee expect it to be done in a manner that is not only legal and constitutional, but is effective,” Lee said.
“I have ordered a comprehensive, third-party review to determine exactly what occurred.”