Independent inquiry ordered after failed execution of Pike, who was convicted of 1994 murder

Independent inquiry ordered after failed execution of Pike, who was convicted of 1994 murder

Tennessee’s governor on Thursday said it was “deeply disturbing” that his state botched the execution of a death row prisoner who remained alive and snoring 40 minutes after receiving a double dose of the lethal drug that should have quickly killed her.

Bill Lee, a Republican, has suspended all executions in the state until at least the end of the year and ordered an independent inquiry after Wednesday night’s failed attempt to put to death Christa Pike, who was convicted of murder, at the execution chamber in Nashville.

Meanwhile, Pike, 50, remained in the hospital on Thursday afternoon. “We don’t have a sense of her prognosis or much update on her health at the moment, but we do know that she is alive right now and receiving life-saving medical care,” Randy Spivey, one of her attorneys, said at an afternoon press conference.

  • plz1@sh.itjust.works
    52·
    2 days ago

    The thing I never understood, especially in southern states, is why their capital punishment didn’t just involve a bullet to the temple. Like, kinda hard to screw that up. I’m not for capital punishment, I just don’t understand why the focus is on lethal injection, and states keep screwing that up in various ways. Cruel and unusual would be something that prolongs the process of making someone dead or using error prone solutions that don’t succeed, and a bullet is neither of those.

    • Omgpwnies@lemmy.worldEnglish
      4·
      2 days ago

      For one, that has also failed to kill people. Second, the “techniques” used for execution are made to be as impersonal as possible; in most cases the person doing the killing doesn’t see the person being killed when they take the action, the only exception that I know of being firing squad, but the condemned is still made to wear a hood. It’s cowardice masked as “humane” because they don’t want the executioner to have PTSD from taking another human’s life.

      • plz1@sh.itjust.works
        1·
        2 days ago

        Yeah, fair. Specifically to the firing squad, I believe it was set up where only one person in the squad had live rounds, so none of them knew who actually took a life. I wasn’t considering the personal toll it would likely take on someone to have their job literally be state-sanctioned murder. Being in the military is one thing, but this level would likely take a heavy toll on all but sociopaths/psychopaths…