Briefing|Tennessee Pauses Executions After a Botched Lethal Injection

Christa Pike, who was convicted of murder three decades ago, is in critical condition after Tennessee failed to execute her, her lawyer said this afternoon. Pike was transported to a hospital last night after surviving two doses of the lethal drug pentobarbital.

Pike remained alive, breathing and snoring for nearly an hour before she was taken to a hospital. Randy Spivey, a lawyer for Pike, described the botched execution as “cruel and torturous,” and urged Bill Lee, the state’s Republican governor, to reduce her sentence to life in prison.

Lee, who previously denied such a request, suspended all other executions in Tennessee until the completion of an independent review. Pike’s was the state’s second failed execution this year.

Pike would have been the first woman to be executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years. She was found guilty of torturing and murdering a classmate, Colleen Slemmer, in 1995, when Pike was 18. After years in prison, Pike said she had grown to regret her actions. Slemmer’s mother has been adamantly in favor of Pike’s execution; she was at the prison yesterday.

The execution team went through at least seven needles trying to find a suitable vein to execute Pike, her lawyers said. She was left with blistering and burning. That suggests that the lethal drug probably poured into tissue surrounding the insertion sites instead of entering her bloodstream.

For more: America has a long history of botched executions.