A stay has been granted in the appeals case for Christa Pike, Rob Dunham, Director at Death Penalty Policy Project, announced Wednesday morning. Pike was scheduled to be executed by lethal injection at 10 a.m. She would have been the first woman to be executed in the state of Tennessee in more than 200 years.
Pike has spent three decades on death row after being convicted of the 1995 killing of Colleen Slemmer. Now 50, Pike was 18 years old at the time of the crime. "The US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has issued a temporary stay of execution, pending further decision of the court," Dunham said, adding, "The legal question, is whether, Krista Pike's petition, in which she says that, the Tennessee prosecutors have for the first time admitted that she had a long and serious history of sexual abuse, whether that is a petition to reopen her prior proceedings, or whether it constitutes a new habeas petition." "The reason that's important is, if it is a motion to reopen the proceedings and she is permitted to reopen the proceedings, then, the court will reconsider. the original habeas corpus petition, in which she raised a whole bunch of issues saying that she would not have been sentenced to death if the evidence of the sexual abuse had been presented," he explained.
Prosecutors are expected to ask the Supreme Court to lift the stay, Dunham said, noting that the Supreme Court declined to hear a similar case yesterday. Dozens of people gathered near the execution site Wednesday morning for a vigil, joined by another couple hundred in online vigils. This is a breaking news story.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
