Christa Pike, the sole female inmate on Tennessee's death row, survived two lethal injection attempts during a failed execution, according to her legal team.
In a federal court filing submitted late Wednesday in an effort to halt the procedure, Pike's attorneys stated she was "still alive and snoring" at 0126 GMT on Thursday. The filing noted that she had not lost consciousness and maintained a heartbeat. Her lawyers later confirmed she was transported to a nearby hospital, though her current medical status remains undisclosed.
"Tonight the State of Tennessee once again failed to carry out a lawful execution," her attorneys said in a statement. "Christa is being treated at a nearby hospital. We have not been informed as to her condition."
The execution was scheduled to take place at 1500 GMT at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution. Had it succeeded, Pike would have been the first woman executed in Tennessee in two centuries.
Witnesses, including journalists, observed the procedure. John North, an investigative reporter with WBIR, stated, "It appears this did not go how this was supposed to go. When we left the building, so far as we knew, she was probably still alive." A livestream captured an ambulance departing the prison with its lights flashing, though it was not confirmed if Pike was inside.
The failed execution followed a decision by the US Supreme Court hours earlier to clear the way for the procedure. Liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented from the ruling. The dissenting justices argued that the high court's decision "unnecessarily prevents that [lower] court from giving due consideration to Pike’s claim," adding that "the Court grants such extraordinary relief solely to allow the State to execute Pike before litigation over her conviction has properly run its course in the lower courts."
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court had rejected a separate application to stay the execution. That filing argued that Pike's history of sexual assault, post-traumatic stress disorder, and a blood condition would make a lethal injection cause "needless suffering."
Pike was 18 years old when she and her boyfriend beat and killed 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer at a youth job training camp. Her case has sparked significant debate regarding the death penalty for young offenders and prisoners with severe mental health issues.
Her lawyers had petitioned Tennessee Governor Bill Lee for clemency, highlighting her age and mental state at the time of the crime. Governor Lee declined to intervene. Independent United Nations rights experts had also appealed to US and Tennessee authorities to halt the execution and commute her sentence, stating that her execution would represent the culmination of "severe physical and psychological suffering marked by childhood abuse and nearly three decades of solitary confinement on death row."
According to the Death Penalty Information Center, only 18 women have been executed in the United States since 1976.
