50-year-old Christa Pike, who was sentenced to death in the US state of Tennessee for a murder in 1995, survived an execution attempt by lethal injection.
His lawyers stated that Pike, who did not die despite being injected with two doses of pentobarbital and woke up from a coma, was in a serious condition, and that their client was fighting for his life in the hospital, angry and in mental confusion.
Pike was taken to a hospital in Nashville, unconscious, following the attempted execution at Riverbend Maximum Security Prison a week ago.
His lawyers stated that they thought Pike was brain dead and his life support would be turned off by Monday, following the second botched execution attempt in Tennessee this year.
HE WOKE UP FROM COMA AND STARTED TO TALK
In his statement to the Reuters agency, lawyer Randall Spivey stated that his client woke up unexpectedly on Tuesday and said, "Everyone, including me, her team and the medical staff, was in great surprise; Christa woke up and started talking."
Noting that Pike cannot swallow, cannot eat, has pneumonia and cannot move his extremely swollen arms, Spivey said that it is not yet known whether he will experience permanent loss of movement.
Stating that Pike was kept chained to the hospital bed, Spivey stated that his client was able to communicate with those around him despite the mental confusion.
"He's angry and confused about everything right now. He's very aware that the state is trying to execute him. He wanted to know what was going on, he asked about various people and the victim's family," Spivey said.
Pike was sentenced to death for his role in the torture and murder of 19-year-old schoolmate Colleen Slemmer in 1995, when he was still a teenager.
His lawyers say Pike is the first person known to have survived a "completed execution attempt" in the United States and argue that what happened violates the U.S. Constitution's provision prohibiting cruel and unusual punishment.
Following the developments, Davidson County Common Pleas Judge I'Ashea Myles ordered Tennessee authorities to preserve all evidence of the failed execution attempt.
Decision; It includes syringes, medicine packages, batch numbers, catheters, serum hoses, stretcher straps, incident reports, witness statements and encrypted correspondence.
According to lawyers, at Pike's request, the all-female execution team used at least seven needles in a process that lasted more than two hours, and one of the needles removed was bent 90 degrees.
Judge Myles stated that the case was filed in January to prevent the execution, but no one predicted that Pike would survive, and said, "This case is unique, to say the least."
A decision has not yet been made regarding the lawyers' request to take samples from the drug residues left in the execution for chemical analysis.
The Tennessee Department of Corrections argued that the evidence preservation order was unnecessary, that they were already legally obligated to preserve the evidence, and that they were ready to share most of what was requested.
Tennessee Governor Bill Lee suspended all executions for the rest of the year following the Pike case and the failure to use intravenous access in the execution of prisoner Tony Carruthers in May.
Pike's other lawyer, Luke Ihnen, said the hearing was for transparency purposes and that courts and the public should not directly rely on the state's words.
Ihnen requested that Governor Lee commute the sentence to life imprisonment and that no further execution attempts be made.
Pike's lawyers had previously requested an alternative method to lethal injection due to their client's narrow veins and health problems.
Many US states, including Tennessee, are having difficulty obtaining execution drugs from large pharmaceutical companies due to Europe's ban on the trade of products that can be used in torture and executions.
For this reason, states are outsourcing non-mass production to small pharmacies with limited supervision, promising to keep their identities secret.
On the other hand, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee announced that Tennessee Department of Corrections Director Frank Strada will leave his post later this month.
Governor Lee described the decision as a necessary step in his written statement on Saturday. "Director Strada has served with integrity. I admire his will to put the interests of the people of Tennessee first during this difficult time. I have accepted his decision to step down and thank him for his commitment to a smooth leadership transition," Lee said. Strada's replacement has not been announced yet.
Strada, who started working in Tennessee three years ago, previously worked as a senior administrator at the Arizona Department of Corrections.
There were similar problems with multiple executions during Strada's tenure in Arizona.
While an independent investigation is being conducted to shed light on what happened, Strada noted that he resigned "in the interest of the people of Tennessee."
Defending his institution's steps in the Pike case, Strada said, "I believe that this investigation is extremely appropriate and necessary; I will do everything I can to help determine exactly what happened."
Mother May Martinez, who watched the process from the prison in Nashville, told NBC News: "It was a complete fiasco. They tried to execute him and he did not die."
In his statement to local television channel WSMV, Martinez shared his opinion that state authorities will not attempt to execute his daughter's murderer again.
When asked what his personal expectations were for Pike's future, Martinez emphasized that the process was not under his control.
Pointing to the decisions of the state government, the mother said, "It doesn't matter what I think. They will do what they do."
Martinez's granddaughter, Morgan Seeley, also told WSMV that after the unsuccessful execution attempt, her grandmother refused to eat for days and had difficulty speaking through tears.
Regarding his grandmother's feelings, Seeley said, "She wanted justice. Pike staying in prison was not justice."
