Kennedy Says Christa Pike Still Should Not Face Execution

Christa Pike, the Tennessee death row inmate who survived a disastrously botched lethal injection, remained alive but in critical condition Thursday evening, according to her attorneys.

At least seven needles were used to deliver two doses of pentobarbital, a drug normally intended to cause death, into the veins of the 50-year-old condemned prisoner on Wednesday night. One needle was reportedly bent when it was removed from her arm.

Witnesses said Pike complained of a burning sensation, gasped and snored during the procedure—but did not die.

Even so, I find it difficult to feel sympathy for Christa Pike.

My compassion remains with her victims.

On January 12, 1995, Pike, then 18, reportedly told friends that she had killed a girl, according to documents filed during one of her many appeals.

She told a classmate at the Knoxville vocational training school that she had lured 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer into the woods and cut her throat six times.

Prosecutors argued that Pike viewed Slemmer as a romantic rival.

Pike told a friend that Slemmer had pleaded with her and her boyfriend, but they ignored her. Pike later admitted to police that, armed with a box cutter and a meat cleaver, she slashed Slemmer across the back when the young woman tried to flee.

Investigators later determined that Pike’s boyfriend, who was also convicted of murder, carved a satanic pentagram into Slemmer’s skin.

The attack continued for an hour.

After returning to school, Pike allegedly boasted that she had repeatedly struck Slemmer’s skull with a piece of asphalt.

According to one witness, Pike smiled, danced in a circle and sang “la, la, la” as she described the horrific killing.

She then pulled a gruesome keepsake from her pocket: a fragment of Slemmer’s skull. The following day, Pike showed the remains to another girl and laughed about the blood on her shoes.

Among the journalists and members of the public who witnessed Wednesday’s attempted execution, more than three decades after Pike’s conviction for first-degree murder, was May Martinez, Slemmer’s mother.

Martinez is also a victim.

“I stood in front of that window and I watched her very, very carefully. I did not take my eyes off of her,” Martinez told People magazine. “I wanted her to remember who Colleen was and what they’ve done and never forget that thought, no matter where she goes.”

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Martinez said Pike has never apologized for taking her daughter. “She has no remorse. She’s never had any remorse in 31 years,” the grieving mother said. “We can’t get justice for my daughter.”

Again, I have no sympathy for Christa Pike. That she is being portrayed by some as a martyr makes me sick. Her lawyers are even now arguing that her entire sentence should be wiped away.

But I must ask: Is this what the pursuit of justice really looks like?

As a public commentator, I have long questioned the death penalty and, ultimately, as a libertarian and an Eastern Orthodox Christian, I have decided that no matter how cruel or evil one human being can be, it should not be up to the state to execute them.

To me, opposing the death penalty is not about sparing the depraved, it’s about weighing the benefits of vengeance against its cost.

To those who argue that some people cannot be rehabilitated, that some crimes deserve the ultimate punishment and that Pike must be killed to remove a public menace from society, I say: Let her rot in prison.

I want her to grow old and frail contemplating her miserable life. In some ways, death is an easy way out for her. And when it comes to forgiveness that’s not my call. I am a believer. God will deliver the final judgement for Pike.

Really, much of the country has already concluded that the death penalty is anti-American. Twenty-three states have outlawed the practice. Governors in another four additional states have halted executions, citing practical problems, like the difficulty of securing lethal injection drugs, as pharmaceutical companies have stopped producing them.

Even the states that continue executions are wavering. If they were so committed they’d just line the inmates against the wall and shoot them. But, of course, that would be uncivilized.

And what about the doctors who are hired to participate in state-sponsored killing? Don’t they violate their Hippocratic Oath to do no harm?

The Tennessee doctor who oversaw the botched killing of Pike, Dr Mark Fowler, a contractor for the state’s prison system, was also present at the state’s last flubbed execution of kidnap and murder convict, Tony Carruthers, in May.

The executioners in that case gave up trying to find a vein after several failed attempts and so Dr Fowler reportedly tried to establish a line to administer the drugs through Carruthers’s collarbone. That didn’t work either, yet Tennessee invites the Good Doctor back?

Which brings me to my final point, why in the world would a red-blooded American – a conservative, especially – grant the government the authority to kill its own people?

These folks can’t balance a budget, fill a pothole or agree on pretty much anything of substance, but we trust them with mortal vengeance? No thanks.

Now, because of Tennessee’s bungling, we will no doubt hear the name Christa Pike for weeks, as her lawyers, the state and the real victims argue over what’s to be done next.

But I say true justice for Colleen Slemmer and May Martinez is Christa Pike behind bars and forgotten – forever.