Christa Pike's lawyers have issued a new update on her condition, two days after she survived a botched execution attempt at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Tennessee.
Her current condition
In a court filing seen by multiple outlets, Pike's attorneys said: "Christa remains critically ill and is receiving medical care for the devastating effects of Wednesday night's events. She is critically ill, unconscious, intubated and receiving breathing assistance through a ventilator." The filing states both of Pike's arms were swollen, burned, and blistered when she arrived at hospital, and that medical staff are working to clear the pentobarbital administered during the execution attempt from her system. Her lawyers said she had received two full doses of the drug after complications with the IV lines meant it did not enter her bloodstream correctly, and that prison staff subsequently prepared a backup set of syringes and administered a second dose. According to the filing, the Tennessee Department of Correction's IV team used at least seven needles over the course of the attempt, which lasted more than two hours in total.
Pike's attorney, Stephen Ferrell, said the extent of any lasting damage, including possible oxygen deprivation, remains unclear, telling reporters: "It's such an unknown: what was conscious, what will be remembered, what damage may have occurred to her brain from oxygen deprivation." Attorney Randall Spivey, who was present in the execution chamber, recalled Pike saying she was in pain and that her arm felt like it was "about to explode," and said she had been cooperative throughout, even attempting to help staff locate a usable vein.
What her lawyers are now asking for
The filing forms part of an emergency request from Pike's legal team asking the state to preserve all records related to the execution attempt, stating: "Preserving this evidence is essential to understanding what happened, ensuring accountability and protecting Christa's legal rights." Her lawyers have called for her sentence to be commuted to life imprisonment, describing what she endured as "chemical torture," and alleged that the state showed "deliberate indifference to her basic medical needs and reckless disregard of basic medical practices and their own lethal injection protocol." They also noted that many of the complications that occurred had been warned about by Pike and her legal team in the months leading up to the execution.
The state's response
A spokesperson for the Tennessee Department of Correction maintained: "The Tennessee Department of Correction followed every step of the State's lawful, established execution protocol approved by the Attorney General's Office. The lethal injection chemical in the protocol has consistently been effective, and the protocol does not allow for additional procedures beyond what was carried out this evening." Governor Bill Lee has ordered a review into the incident and indefinitely postponed Pike's case along with another scheduled execution for the remainder of the year.
Background on her case
Pike, 50, was sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, a fellow student she and then-boyfriend Tadaryl Shipp beat and killed in Knoxville. If her execution had proceeded as planned, she would have become the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years. Slemmer's mother, May Martinez, had travelled from Florida to witness the execution, having previously said she hoped it would finally bring her some peace.
