Christa Pike is alive a day after Tennessee’s failed attempt to execute her, her lawyers say
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NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) -- Christa Pike is in critical condition but receiving "lifesaving care" at a hospital, her lawyers said Thursday, a day after she survived a failed attempt to execute her for the 1995 murder during what Tennessee’s governor called a "deeply disturbing" procedure.
Pike was taken to the hospital Wednesday night after she received a double dose of the drug Tennessee uses to execute prisoners but survived. Her lawyers said they were told her condition is critical, but they didn’t know specifics.
"Christa is alive right now. We don't have a sense of her prognosis or much update on her health at the moment,” attorney Randy Spivey said during a news conference. “But we know she is alive right now and receiving lifesaving medical care."
Attorney Steve Ferrell said Pike feared there would be complications with the lethal injection because of a lifelong blood disorder that made it tough to get needles into her veins.
"Throughout her life, she's explained to us that she had trouble having blood drawn," Ferrell said.
Spivey said he counted at least seven needles that were used in her left arm alone.
"Ms. Pike was not just cooperative but was helping to instruct the people placing the IV lines" as to where they might put them," Spivey said. "She told them over and over, please try higher on my shoulder."
Pike’s lawyers said the failed execution amounted to "torture," and they called for her death sentence to be commuted.
The state tried to execute Pike by lethal injection, but neither the initial nor backup dose of pentobarbital killed her and she was still snoring when the execution chamber's microphone was cut off more than an hour into the attempt. She was later taken to a hospital for treatment.
At one point during Wednesday night's execution attempt, she asked prison officials if her arm was supposed to feel that way, though it's unclear if it was after the first dose entered her body, as officials don't share that information. Later, more than an hour after the process began and nearly 30 minutes after a backup dose of pentobarbital was administered, she could be heard snoring loudly.
On Thursday, Republican Gov. Bill Lee indefinitely postponed Pike's execution and Tennessee's lone remaining one that had been scheduled for this year. He also ordered an independent review of what happened, calling it "deeply disturbing."
But Pike’s lawyers said such a review would be insufficient.
Pike, 50, was sentenced to death for a murder she committed at age 18. She would have been the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years.
An appeals court stopped the lethal injection an hour before it was scheduled to begin, but the U.S. Supreme Court overturned that stay hours later.
It was the second time this year that Tennessee was unable to complete an execution, though in the other case, officials couldn’t find a suitable vein for an IV line so the drugs weren’t administered.
May Martinez, whose daughter was murdered by Pike and her boyfriend and who traveled to Nashville to watch the execution, told NBC News that "it was a mess."
The failure, which one death penalty expert described as unprecedented, led Gov. Bill Lee to order a review and to indefinitely postpone Pike’s execution and Tennessee’s lone other one that had been scheduled for this year. It also reignited the debate over the state's execution procedures, including its single-drug lethal injections.
"There are very few answers this morning. It's very early,” Lee told reporters Thursday at an unrelated event, noting he had received no updates on Pike’s condition. “The people of our state deserve to have those questions answered.”