Overview
- Tennessee tried to execute Christa Pike on Sept. 30 by giving two doses of pentobarbital, but she survived and was taken to a hospital on life support before regaining consciousness days later.
- Pike has begun walking short distances and is eating a regular diet, yet doctors and lawyers say she has ongoing memory, concentration and psychological problems and severe tissue damage and blistering at injection sites.
- A Davidson County judge ordered the Tennessee Department of Correction to preserve all execution-related evidence and reopened Pike’s legal challenge to the state’s lethal-injection protocol.
- Governor Bill Lee has suspended further executions while former U.S. Attorney Ed Stanton conducts an independent review, and the state corrections commissioner, Frank Strada, resigned after the incident.
- The case has intensified scrutiny of lethal injection practices because Pike is the first reported person to survive after drugs were administered, raising questions about IV access, compounded drugs and use of nonmedical staff in executions.