Overview
- Last week authorities carried out an execution attempt that lawyers say included two doses of pentobarbital yet did not cause death.
- Pike is hospitalized and reportedly conscious and responsive while receiving treatment for discolored, blistered and burned injection sites on her arms.
- Her lawyers say prison staff made multiple failed attempts to place intravenous lines during the procedure, while the Tennessee Department of Correction says its execution protocol was followed.
- Governor Bill Lee has suspended the state's remaining executions for the year and ordered an external investigation, and Pike’s attorneys have asked that her death sentence be converted to life in prison and plan further legal action.
- Advocates and experts say the case is highly unusual with no comparable modern U.S. example of prescribed execution drugs being given and the inmate surviving, and it renews scrutiny of IV access problems and Eighth Amendment concerns.