Tennessee Death Row Inmate Christa Pike Survives Failed Execution

A Tennessee woman, Christa Pike, who was sentenced to death in 1996 for murdering her schoolmate in 1995, survived an attempt to execute her by lethal injection on September 30. Pike, who is now 50, was taken to an off-site medical facility after prison officials gave her two doses of lethal injection drugs but failed to put her to death.

The execution was at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville after the US Supreme Court overturned a last-minute stay granted by a federal appeals court. The Sixth US Circuit Court of Appeals had temporarily halted the execution to consider Pike's claim that evidence of severe childhood abuse had not been considered when she was sentenced to death.

The Supreme Court later vacated that stay, clearing the way for Tennessee to proceed. According to Pike's lawyers, witnesses saw her heart was still beating after two doses of the lethal injection drug. An emergency court filing by her lawyers said she had not lost consciousness and could still be heard breathing and snoring.

The Tennessee Department of Correction said it had followed the state's established execution protocol and confirmed that Pike was taken to an off-site medical facility. Her condition was not immediately disclosed, as per Reuters. The failed execution has now placed Pike's case back in the spotlight after nearly 32 years after the murder that sent her to death row.

Who is Christa Pike? Christa Pike was 18 when she murdered Colleen Slemmer, another student at a Job Corps vocational training centre in Knoxville, Tennessee in January 1995. Pike was convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder. A jury sentenced her to death for the murder, making her the only person involved in Slemmer's killing to receive a death sentence.

Pike was sentenced in 1996, when she was 20. Her death sentence was upheld through multiple rounds of appeals. Pike has remained on Tennessee's death row for roughly three decades. The reason why her case was this much extended was because she was 18 year old kid at the time of the crime.

Her lawyers have argued that her age, history of abuse and mental health problems should have been taken into account when jurors decided whether she should live or die. What happened to Colleen Slemmer? Pike and two others, who were also associated with the Knoxville Job Corps programme took the victim, Colleen Slemmer to a wooded area On January 12, 1995.

On January 12, 1995, Pike, her boyfriend Tadaryl Shipp and Shadolla Peterson, who were also associated with the Knoxville Job Corps programme, took Slemmer to a wooded area. Court records say the three tortured Slemmer for between 30 and 45 minutes. She was cut with a box cutter and a small meat cleaver and was beaten with a rock.

A pentagram was carved into her chest while she was still alive, according to court records. The 1995 killing received extensive media attention specially because of the pentagram and other details that found during the investigation and trial. Her conviction was based on extensive evidence, including a confession, according to the state and federal court records.

Why Colleen Slemmer was murdered? The prosecution said the killing was partly linked to a dispute between Pike and Slemmer over Pike’s boyfriend. Court records say Pike believed Slemmer had been trying to get her boyfriend and had been insulting her. The Tennessee Supreme Court record also quotes evidence that Pike had told another student before the murder that she intended to kill Slemmer.

Pike's lawyers have not disputed that she was involved in Slemmer's killing. Their more recent legal arguments have focused primarily on the circumstances surrounding Pike herself, including her age and childhood trauma and whether those factors were presented to the jury during sentencing.

What happened to other involved in murder? Tadaryl Shipp, who was 17 at the time, was convicted of murder and conspiracy. He was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole, along with an additional sentence for conspiracy. Shadolla Peterson was also prosecuted in connection with the killing and received a substantially different sentence.

Pike's lawyers have pointed to the differing sentences as part of their broader argument about why her death sentence should be reconsidered. The state has maintained that the evidence supported the sentence and that Pike's case had already gone through extensive judicial review. In a filing before the Supreme Court this year, Tennessee argued that Pike had exhausted direct appeal, state post-conviction proceedings and federal habeas review.

Pike's lawyers had earlier argued that the sentencing jury did not hear important evidence about her childhood and mental health. They say Pike experienced severe sexual abuse, neglect and abandonment as a child and that evidence concerning her trauma and mental health was not presented during the original sentencing proceedings.

Her defence has also cited bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder in arguing for a sentence of life imprisonment instead of death.