A week after the failed execution in the US state of Tennessee, the lawyers of the US American Christa Pike (50), who was sentenced to death, describe her client's state of confusion. There are moments when she drifts away for a while, Pike's attorney Randy Spivey said Wednesday at a press conference after a court hearing in Nashville, Tennessee.
Accordingly, the 50-year-old is “still very cognitively confused”. Her first words after waking up in the hospital were: “Where am I and who are you,” said Spivey when asked by journalists. However, she is aware that the state tried to execute her. Spivey said he believes Pike is "angry and confused" about all of this right now.
According to the authorities, Pike was given the two doses of the drug pentobarbital specified in the execution protocol last Wednesday evening. Yet she continued to live. According to her lawyers, the American was conscious again on Tuesday after being ventilated in a hospital in the Nashville area.
Lawyers: Pike has a long road to recovery ahead of him
Now the convicted murderer has a blood clot in one of her arms and cannot move any of her limbs. “We don’t know whether and to what extent she will regain function,” said Spivey. “Her hands looked like a surgical glove had been inflated,” Spivey described. In addition, Pike is suffering from pneumonia and is being fed. She has a long road to recovery ahead of her.
Her lawyers expressed surprise that Pike regained consciousness a week after the botched execution. “On Monday evening we assumed that Christa was brain dead and that life support would be switched off the next day,” explained Spivey. To “everyone’s great surprise,” Pike woke up and started speaking.
Lawyer: Pike can “speak to a limited extent”
Pike "was unable to communicate with her attorneys and with her medical team" until Tuesday, attorney Luke told you Wednesday at a court hearing on the case in Nashville. Furthermore, she can only “speak to a limited extent”.
Before the execution attempt, the 50-year-old used a tablet with which she could contact friends, family and lawyers. However, when asked by the judge, counsel explained to them that they were not sure whether Pike could use a tablet at the moment, even if one were made available to her.
Previously, Judge I'Ashea Myles had granted Pike's lawyers' request to preserve evidence from last week's attempted execution. This would be relevant should Pike need to challenge a future execution, counsel told them in court. The New York Times points out that her health will likely determine whether another attempt is made to execute Pike at a later date.
Lawyers want to commute sentence
Pike's lawyers repeatedly reiterated their demand to Tennessee's Republican governor, Bill Lee, that Pike should be sentenced to life in prison instead of the death penalty - without the possibility of early release. “From what we have seen, it is inconceivable that the state would attempt to execute her again,” Spivey said.
Lee canceled the last execution scheduled for this year last week. Back in May, Tennessee had to stop the execution of another convicted felon after failing to establish the necessary intravenous lines.
No comparable US case
According to the Death Penalty Information Center, there is no known comparable modern U.S. case in which the intended execution drugs were administered and the prisoner still lived. The case has brought the debate that has been going on for years about the death penalty in the USA and in particular about the reliability of executions by lethal injection back into focus.
Pike was sentenced to death in 1996 for the murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer. She was 18 years old at the time of the crime. Slemmer was tortured and eventually killed in 1995 in a remote area near the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. Pike's execution would have been the first of a woman in Tennessee in more than 200 years.
