'Inhumane, Barbaric, Torturous': Christa Pike Survives Twice-Botched Execution in Tennessee

The botched execution of Christa Pike in Tennessee on Wednesday night was met with disgust and outrage by death penalty opponents who have long argued that not only is murder by the state morally wrong, but the government's inability to carry out such punishments humanely has been shown time and time again to result in horrific human rights violations and barbaric scenes of cruelty inside the nation's prison walls.

Pike, sentenced to death in Tennessee over the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, survived two otherwise lethal injections of pentobarbital on Wednesday while strapped to a gurney by prison officials at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville.

"Tonight the State of Tennessee once again failed to carry out a lawful execution," said Pike's attorneys—Randy Spivey and Kelly Gleason from the TN Office of the Post Conviction Defender, and Stephen Ferrell and Luke Ihnen from Federal Defender Services of Eastern Tennessee—in a statement late Wednesday.

"We take no pleasure in being right," her lawyer's continued, "but the concerns raised by Ms. Pike proved to be true: difficult vein access, blown veins, degraded pentobarbital, no emergency medical care available when things inevitably go wrong, all under a protocol that remains veiled in secrecy. Christa is being treated at a nearby hospital. We have not been informed as to her condition."

Pike's legal team said she remained alive after two rounds of the lethal injection, with witnesses reporting confusion after the first dose resulted in Pike raising her head to speak to those who administered the drug and falling into a deep sleep, but audibly snoring and still alive, after the second.

“This event is the worst we’ve seen and unlike any other botched execution in the modern era,” said Robin Maher, the executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center. “There is no precedent.”

It was the second botched execution in Tennessee this year, reports The New York Times. According to the newspaper:

The apparent failure came after dueling court rulings delayed the execution of [Pike] by about nine hours. The state had raced to go ahead with the execution before the day ended and to avoid having to reschedule.

In a pair of emergency legal filings, Ms. Pike’s lawyers said that while two syringes of pentobarbital, the lethal drug, had been administered, Ms. Pike had not lost consciousness. She still had a heartbeat, they said, and was audibly snoring.

The execution of Pike, who court records show was subject to pervasive abuse throughout her childhood and was only 18 years old when she carried out the brutal crime, had been put on hold earlier Wednesday only to be reinstated by the US Supreme Court later in the day.

Amnesty International USA condemned the treatment of Pike and called for an end to all capital punishment in the United States.

"Tennessee’s botched attempt to execute Christa Pike, as witnessed by her attorneys, demonstrates why the death penalty truly is the ultimate cruel, inhuman, and degrading punishment," the group said. "All execution methods are inhumane and unacceptable. The death penalty must be abolished, everywhere."

Republican Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee announced after the botched execution that the state’s other remaining execution for 2026 would be put on hold and ordered “a comprehensive, third-party review to determine exactly what occurred” in the attempted killing of Pike.

Pike, said human rights advocate Evad HaAm, "survived a completed lethal-injection attempt. That is not a stay. It is a botched execution."

While Pike's current medical status and chance for survival remain unknown, further attempts by the state to kill her, he argued, "would violate the Eighth Amendment prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment."