Christa Pike hospitalized after failed execution attempt in Tennessee

Christa Pike remains hospitalized in critical condition after surviving two lethal injections administered Wednesday at a Tennessee prison. Aged 50, the death row inmate is in a coma and placed on respiratory assistance, according to a complaint filed Friday by her lawyers.

“She is intubated, on a ventilator, and remains unconscious,” said her lawyer Luke Ihnen. Upon arrival at the hospital, doctors “attempted to save Ms. Pike’s life.” His arms were then “swollen, burned and covered with blisters”, he said. Experts consulted by his lawyers compared pentobarbital, a product used in executions, to bleach.

The State owes an apology to the victim’s mother

This attempted execution came after a day of legal appeals. A federal appeals court had suspended the proceedings in order to have more time to examine the trauma and violence, particularly sexual, suffered by Christa Pike during her childhood. The United States Supreme Court finally authorized the execution on Wednesday.

Christa Pike was convicted of the murder of Colleen Slemmer in 1996. May Martinez, the victim's mother, traveled from Florida to attend the execution. After her failure, she told local media that “the State owed her a sincere apology”. “All I wanted was justice,” she told WJXX.

An unprecedented punishment according to his lawyers

Christa Pike's lawyers, for their part, highlight the conditions of detention and the attempted execution suffered by their client. “After enduring more than 20 years of solitary confinement and a complete attempt to kill her by lethal injection, Christa is the person who has suffered the greatest punishment in the history of the death penalty in the United States,” Randy Spivey, one of her lawyers, said Thursday.

Our file on the United States

Had her execution been successful, Christa Pike would have been the first woman executed by the state of Tennessee in more than two centuries. Since 1976, only 18 women have been executed in the United States, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.