Overview
- Tennessee staff administered two doses of pentobarbital during an execution attempt at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution on Sept. 30 that did not kill Christa Pike and left her critically injured.
- Pike has now awakened in a Nashville hospital, spoken with attorneys and reportedly asked “Where am I?” while remaining handcuffed to the bed and unable to swallow or move her arms.
- Her lawyers say Pike suffered burned, blistered and hugely swollen arms after multiple needle attempts and they and medical experts suspect IV infiltration — the drug leaking into tissue rather than the bloodstream — though the full medical prognosis is unclear.
- A Davidson County judge ordered Tennessee to preserve syringes, IV lines, drug packaging, recordings and internal communications and Pike’s team has asked Governor Bill Lee to commute her sentence to life without parole.
- The episode forced Commissioner Frank Strada to offer his resignation, prompted Lee to suspend the state’s remaining executions for the year and has raised novel legal questions about Eighth Amendment claims and whether the state could lawfully try to execute Pike again.