Texas: First execution by lethal injection since failed execution in USA

A week after the failed execution of a woman, authorities in the US state of Texas carried out a death sentence using the same substance. Like Christa Pike, the man sentenced to death for murder had pentobarbital injected into his veins, as US media consistently reported. He was pronounced dead at the Texas State Penitentiary in Huntsville at 8:03 p.m.

The man had been sentenced to death for a fatal robbery. During the robbery in 2000, the then 20-year-old shot a store employee and stole $114 from the cash register. His lawyers tried unsuccessfully to stop the execution in various ways. According to US media, they pushed, among other things, for a stay of execution to wait until more information about the drug was available.

As the US newspaper New York Times reported, among others, the 46-year-old is said to have turned to the family of the killed woman in his last statement before the execution and asked for forgiveness. They had watched the execution of the sentence through a window of the execution chamber.

Pike survived lethal injection

The failed execution of Pike, who was convicted of murder, reignited the debate about the death penalty in the USA that has been going on for years. According to the New York Times, she is believed to be the first person to survive receiving a lethal injection. Pike was scheduled to be the first woman to be executed in Tennessee in over 200 years.

The woman was given two doses of the drug pentobarbital for her execution last Wednesday. The 50-year-old survived both injections and was taken to a local hospital for treatment, where she was given artificial ventilation. According to her lawyers, she has now regained consciousness.

According to her lawyers, the 50-year-old suffered burns to her arms. The lethal injection is said to have been administered incorrectly: it took an hour to establish the intravenous access and a needle was badly bent. Presumably some of the poison got into the surrounding tissue instead of a vein.

In the state of Texas, six people had already been executed this year before the 46-year-old was executed. Two more executions are scheduled for November.