Christa Pike became the first death row inmate known to survive a lethal injection Wednesday after the execution failed to stop her breathing and heartbeat — an expert described the incident as “singular and unparalleled.”
Pike, 50, was secured to a gurney inside the death chamber at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution shortly before 7:30 p.m. CDT. Officials administered two doses of pentobarbital, but neither produced the intended effect.
Robin Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said seven other condemned prisoners had survived medical complications during executions after staff members were unable to locate a vein. However, she said no inmate had previously survived after receiving the lethal drug itself.
Maher called Pike’s case “singular and unparalleled.” Several experienced media witnesses also said the scene appeared abnormal and unlike a typical execution.
When the second dose of the lethal injection failed, Pike’s attorneys filed an emergency request to halt the execution, arguing that she was suffering “unnecessary agony.” District Judge Clifton L. Corker granted the motion.
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Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee ordered an immediate “comprehensive, third-party review to determine exactly what occurred” and suspended the state’s only other scheduled execution for the remainder of the year.
“Carrying out a lawfully imposed sentence is among the State’s most serious responsibilities, and the people of Tennessee expect it to be done in a manner that is not only legal and constitutional, but is effective,” Lee said.
The Tennessee Department of Correction said it had “followed every step of the State’s lawful, established execution protocol approved by the Attorney General’s Office.”
Pike was sentenced to death in 1996 for killing a classmate whom she and her boyfriend lured to a secluded area near the University of Tennessee campus. The pair brutally beat and tortured the woman before Pike crushed her skull with a piece of asphalt.
Tennessee law permits officials to administer a second dose of the execution drug if the first fails. The statute, however, does not specify what should happen if the second dose is also unsuccessful.
With Post wires