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Christa Pike remains in critical condition after surviving a lethal injection in Tennessee, becoming the first execution survivor to require hospitalization. Her lawyers report her long-term prognosis is unclear, while legal experts describe the event as unprecedented compared to other failed attempts where inmates died in the chamber.
US inmate Christa Pike is hospitalised in critical condition after a failed effort to execute her. Christa Pike was still breathing after she was injected with two doses of a lethal drug in an astonishing execution attempt that ultimatelyin the United States a day after the failed execution.
Her lawyers said she was in critical condition and her long-term prognosis was unclear. The case had already drawn international attention before the extraordinary turn of events. Pike was set to become the first woman in more than two centuries to be executed by the state of Tennessee, for a murder she committed when she was 18.
Botched executions are not rare, but Pike's hospitalisation was "unprecedented", according to Deborah Denno, a legal expert in death penalty and lethal injection issues at New York's Fordham University.
"She's the eighth person to have survived a lethal injection execution, but nobody had to be taken to the hospital," she told SBS News. Your trusted source for staying up-to-date with the world around you. Get free daily news updates and analysis, straight to your inbox. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, a non-profit organisation in the US, other prisoners have survived lethal injection attempts after officials were unable to properly establish intravenous lines to administer the drugs.
The nonprofit said Pike's case bore similarities to that of Oklahoma inmate Clayton Lockett, who appeared to survive an initial execution procedure in 2014 but died of a heart attack around 40 minutes later while still in the chamber. Oklahoma corrections officials said at the time that his vein had collapsed and the drugs were "not getting into the system like they were supposed to".
Pike's survival now raises a complicated question: what happens to someone after the state has tried — and failed — to execute them? Pike's execution was initially delayed about an hour before it was supposed to occur after an appeals court considered evidence relating to her alleged childhood sexual abuse. It went ahead later the same day after the Supreme Court intervened.
Pike's legal team had previously warned that she had a blood condition that would make death by lethal injection agonising. Pike had asked to be killed by an all-female firing squad. Media witnesses said Pike was obscured by a curtain for periods of time during the execution process. Christa Pike was sentenced to death three decades ago.
Source: AP / Tennessee Department of Corrections When it was first raised, Pike was reportedly strapped to a gurney with an IV in her arm. She said she was "ready to be free". The curtain to the witnesses was closed, then opened again around the time a second dose of the barbiturate pentobarbital would be administered. Witnesses reported that Pike appeared to lose consciousness, but she continued breathing and at times made snoring-like noises for the next hour.
One of her lawyers, Randy Spivey, said he counted at least seven needle puncture sites on Pike's arm and that one needle bent during an unsuccessful attempt. Medical experts suspect Pike may have survived the procedure because the drug went into tissue surrounding the insertion sites rather than entering her bloodstream, according to the New York Times. This could nonetheless cause chemical burns and lower oxygen levels enough to lead to permanent brain damage.
Restrictions on the sale of drugs for use in executions have made lethal injection drugs difficult to procure, with states reportedly turning to less-regulated suppliers to obtain them. Experts have raised concerns about the quality of some execution drugs, including whether they may have degraded or been improperly prepared. Denno said pentobarbital's effects can be unpredictable, and executioners have widely varying levels of training and are not necessarily medical professionals.
The Tennessee Department of Correction said in a statement it had "followed every step of the state's lawful, established execution protocol approved by the attorney general's office". Richard Bourke, an Australian barrister who spent more than two decades representing people facing the death penalty in the US, said the prison's execution protocol had effectively run its course after the second dose failed.
"And so at that point, ironically enough, they have to stop the execution attempt, provide life-saving treatment, and rush Ms Pike to a hospital where she's still held with a very uncertain prognosis," he told SBS News. What happens next will depend in part on whether Pike regains consciousness, and, if she does, her condition.
Under US law, a person cannot be executed unless they are mentally fit to understand that they are going to be put to death, Bourke said. That means if Pike remains unconscious, or has suffered brain damage severe enough to impair that understanding, the state may be barred from trying to execute her again.
However, if she does recover, surviving an execution attempt does not necessarily prevent the state from executing her. Denno said Pike's lawyers could try to argue that another attempt amounts to double jeopardy, which protects against being prosecuted or punished twice for the same offence.
"They've already tried twice in her very own execution, but to try to execute her yet a third time, they could argue double jeopardy," she said. "In other words, you only get one bite of the apple. " It's not clear whether Tennessee will seek another execution. The state's governor, Bill Lee, has suspended executions for the rest of the year and ordered a review of the incident.
"It's a tragedy, and it's deeply disturbing to me that that has happened in this state," he told reporters. Her lawyers are calling on the governor to reduce her sentence to life in prison, a request he previously denied. Sign up now for daily news from Australia and around the world. You can also subscribe to Insight's weekly newsletter for in-depth features and first-person stories.
Christa Pike Botched Execution Lethal Injection Tennessee Death Penalty
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