As Christa Pike returns to death row after surviving Tennessee’s attempt to execute her, several questions remain about her case and what comes next. Pike, 50, was discharged from hospital and moved back to the Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center, the women’s prison where she was housed for 30 years, her attorneys said on Saturday.
She was hospitalized after surviving two doses of the lethal drug pentobarbital as Tennessee attempted to execute her on September 30. Pike was sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, her classmate at a Job Corps training program in Knoxville, Tennessee. Pike is the first person to survive after receiving lethal injection drugs during an execution, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
Her failed execution has brought renewed scrutiny on how states carry out the death penalty in the U.S, particularly when using lethal injection, and raised questions about whether Tennessee could make another attempt to put Pike to death. Newsweek has contacted Pike’s attorneys and Tennessee Governor Bill Lee’s office for comment via email. Here, Newsweek looks at the major questions in the case.
Pike’s attorneys said on Saturday that she is continuing to receive medical care at the prison. She was hospitalized after the failed execution. Her attorneys said she was critically ill and not expected to survive.
Plans were being made to remove her from life support when she woke up and began talking on Tuesday, her attorneys said. By Thursday, they said she was walking with assistance, eating a regular diet and regaining movement and strength in her arms. They said her arms were burned and blistered in the execution attempt.
Her attorneys described her physical recovery as "remarkable" but said that questions remain about the long-term effects of what she endured. "Christa is dealing with the profound psychological trauma of having survived a failed execution, including the terror, pain and uncertainty of believing she was about to die," they said in a statement on Thursday. "We cannot yet know the full emotional and psychological toll of that experience or how long it will take her to begin to heal." The Tennessee Department of Correction has not said what went wrong during Pike’s execution, but said the execution protocol was followed.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
