The now 50-year-old American was sentenced to death in 1996 for the murder of an acquaintance. She was 18 years old when she and two other teenagers tortured and killed Colleen Slemmer in a remote area near the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. Pike is said to have taken parts of the skull and her friend scratched a pentagram on the victim's chest. According to the New York Times, Pike was being treated in prison for a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. Their lawyers hold them partly responsible for the outbreak of violence 30 years ago. Critics of the death sentence argued that she was not only the perpetrator, but also the victim. As a child, Pike was neglected and sexually abused, according to her defense attorneys. She is mentally damaged and seriously ill.
What happened on the evening of the scheduled execution?
After 30 years on death row, Pike was scheduled to be executed in Nashville on Wednesday evening (local time). The hours beforehand were already dramatic: an appeals court initially ordered a stop to enforcement, but the US Supreme Court overruled it. The execution was initiated - and failed. Eyewitnesses later recalled that Pike spoke several complete sentences, breathed heavily and snored during the procedure. According to her lawyers, she was still conscious and was taken to a hospital. She is currently said to be in critical condition and receiving “life-saving medical care,” reports ABC News, citing defense attorneys. She is the first woman to be executed in the US state of Tennessee since 1819.
What is pentobarbital and how does it work?
According to media reports, in the current case - as in the past - the drug pentobarbital was used to execute the woman. Pentobarbital is an anesthetic and sleeping pill that acts on the central nervous system. At low doses, people become drowsy and cloudy. At high doses, blood pressure drops, breathing and cardiac arrest occur - and ultimately circulatory failure and death due to a lack of oxygen supply to the organs.
The drug was previously used in human medicine as a sleeping aid. Because it is difficult to dose correctly and can quickly become fatal in the event of an overdose, it is now used almost exclusively in veterinary medicine in Germany. But pentobarbital is always in the headlines, and not just because of the execution of capital punishment in the USA. In Germany and Switzerland, the drug became known through the debate about assisted suicide. It is considered an option for people who wish to die and who then administer the drug themselves.
What happens if the drug is dosed incorrectly or not injected into the vein?
It is unclear why Christa Pike initially survived the execution. An official statement from prison doctors is pending. There is discussion in social networks and US media that the doctors may have dosed the medication incorrectly or applied it incorrectly. To have a lethal effect, the drug must enter the bloodstream via a vein or the stomach lining. If the drug is accidentally injected into muscle or fatty tissue, it can weaken or delay the effect. If the lethal dose is not reached, serious damage to the brain can still occur due to a drop in blood pressure and pauses in breathing. It is currently unknown whether and what damage the woman suffered.
Why wasn't there a third injection?
According to the AP news agency, the execution protocol of the US state of Tennessee specifies how an execution must be carried out. If the person sentenced to death does not die after a lethal injection, a second dose is used. The protocol contains no provision for the event that the person is still alive afterwards. The Tennessee Department of Corrections did not immediately comment on the matter in detail. The authority said on its website that it had acted in accordance with “established execution protocol.”
Are there other cases in which an execution went wrong?
The Death Penalty Information Center, which analyzes data on executions and death sentences in the United States, called the incident “unique and unprecedented.” Several people have already survived execution attempts because access to a vein could not be established. But there has never been a case of anyone surviving the lethal drugs. The Tennessee Department of Correction said Wednesday that it followed the enforcement protocol's established process step by step. Another execution had to be stopped in Tennessee in May. With the triple murderer Tony Carruthers, the attempt to create the appropriate access failed. Governor Bill Lee granted him a temporary one-year reprieve from execution. One of the doctors involved in the failed execution was also scheduled to take part in Pike's execution, reports US broadcaster NBC. The doctor has not placed a central venous catheter for 13 years, reports the US radio station NPR.
How often do executions fail?
The Death Penalty Information Center cites legal scholar Austin Sarat, who has studied botched executions from the 1890s to 2010. He documented 8,776 executions, of which 276 were unsuccessful. Sarat's analysis of the cases shows a rate of 7.2 percent for poison injections and 1.92 percent for death in the electric chair. Both methods can be extremely cruel and cause intense pain, which is why critics consider both to be inhumane.
In the past, the failed execution of Clayton Lockett in the state of Oklahoma in 2014 caused a stir. The murderer struggled with death 43 minutes after the injection until he died of a heart attack. The enforcers had previously tried unsuccessfully to find a vein for access for almost an hour. In addition, a substance is said to have been administered that had not been used before and had not been tested much because the large pharmaceutical companies were already refusing to supply US prisons or US judicial authorities for executions. The case reignited the debate about the death penalty.
Will there be another attempt?
Governor Bill Lee ordered a comprehensive external review of the case on Wednesday. In addition, another execution of a man planned for December will no longer be carried out this year, he explained. It remains to be seen whether and when there will be another attempt at Christa Pike. Her lawyers have not yet discussed her next steps. There have already been second execution attempts in the USA. In the Willie Francis case, the Supreme Court allowed a second attempt in 1947 after the electric chair failed. In Ohio, courts cleared the way for a new execution in the Romell Broom case after an aborted attempt in 2009. He died of Covid-19 in 2020 before that happened.
The USA is the only western industrialized country that still carries out executions. The Death Penalty Information Center currently lists 27 US states with the death penalty and 23 without.
