A scheduled execution in Tennessee, United States, has been unsuccessful after death row inmate Christa Pike survived two injections administered as part of the execution procedure.
According to the BBC, the 50-year-old inmate remained alive after receiving two doses of pentobarbital at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville on Wednesday.
Pike reportedly continued to breathe and had a detectable heartbeat following the injections, prompting her lawyers to file an emergency motion seeking to halt the execution and obtain urgent medical care for her.
One of her lawyers told the BBC that Pike was taken to a hospital where she was receiving life-saving treatment. Her legal team said she had lost consciousness but was still breathing audibly and had a heartbeat.
Dr Joel Zivot, a medical expert assisting Pike’s defence team and an anaesthesiologist at Emory University School of Medicine, suggested that the amount of pentobarbital delivered into her bloodstream may have been insufficient to trigger the respiratory and cardiovascular failure normally expected during an execution.
He also expressed concern that any delay in providing emergency treatment could have resulted in brain damage.
Tennessee authorities, however, maintained that the execution was conducted in accordance with the state’s approved protocol. The Tennessee Department of Correction confirmed that Pike was later transferred to a medical facility outside the prison for treatment.
Pike was sentenced to death in 1996 for the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer. Pike and her then-boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, were convicted of attacking and killing Slemmer at a job training camp for young people in Knoxville.
Her execution had been the subject of several legal challenges. Her lawyers argued that important mitigating circumstances, including a history of childhood sexual abuse and other difficulties she experienced during her teenage years, were not adequately considered during her sentencing.
A lower court had temporarily suspended the execution while reviewing arguments from Pike’s lawyers, but the US Supreme Court later overturned the decision, clearing the way for Tennessee officials to proceed.
Tennessee Governor Bill Lee also denied Pike’s request for clemency earlier in the week.
Pike is currently the only woman on Tennessee’s death row. Data from the Death Penalty Information Centre indicates that 18 women have been executed in the United States since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.
By: Prince Martey-Sogar.