Lawyers for Christa Pike warned months before Tennessee attempted to execute her that her medical conditions and difficult-to-access veins could make lethal injection especially dangerous, arguing that the state’s execution protocol risked subjecting her to excruciating pain.
Pike, 50, survived two doses of pentobarbital during a Sept. 30 execution attempt and was taken to a Nashville-area hospital. She regained consciousness and began walking again last week.
In a January lawsuit, Pike’s lawyers challenged Tennessee’s single-drug pentobarbital protocol, which took effect in December 2024 after a multiyear review ordered by Gov. Bill Lee (R-TN).
Her attorneys also argued that the protocol violated the Eighth Amendment because it failed to provide for emergency medical services to be present if an execution went wrong.
“The new protocol, as applied to the Plaintiff and her unique medical conditions, is unconstitutional under the United States Constitution and the Tennessee Constitution,” the lawsuit said. “Tennessee’s execution protocol further violates the Eighth Amendment because it fails to provide contingency plan with emergency medical services on-site in the event of botch. This violation applies to electrocution as well as lethal injection.”
But the lawsuit encountered procedural hurdles before the execution. Tennessee argued that the Davidson County Chancery Court was not the proper venue for a challenge. The court transferred the case to the Tennessee Supreme Court, which dismissed the transferred filing without deciding the merits of Pike’s claims.
Last week, a Davidson County judge reopened the lawsuit, putting Pike’s case back on the court docket.
Back in January, Pike’s attorneys warned that her medical conditions could make the execution process particularly dangerous, including the possibility of severe bleeding in her lungs.
“Because of her severe medical condition, executing the Plaintiff by pentobarbital will ‘very likely produce an even more severe pattern of bloody froth in the lungs. This is death by drowning in one’s own blood,’” the lawsuit stated, citing a medical expert’s declaration.
The filing identified Pike’s conditions as including thrombocytosis, a blood disorder, as well as bipolar disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, and hyperlipidemia. Her attorneys also noted that Pike has small veins that make needle insertion difficult and a history of trouble with blood draws. Prison medical staff frequently used butterfly needles to draw her blood, according to the lawsuit, but Tennessee’s execution laws did not permit the use of butterfly needles.
“[Pike’s] individual physical characteristics make it sure or very likely that there is substantial risk that she will experience unnecessary and superadded pain and suffering, terror, and disgrace,” her lawyers argued.
The lawyers argued that these characteristics made it substantially harder to administer pentobarbital, increasing the risk of failed insertion attempts, vein damage, and improper drug delivery. “Improper delivery of the pentobarbital including, but not limited to, vein damage and leakage, presents risk that is sure or very likely to cause serious illness, needless suffering, and/or prolonged or lingering death,” the lawsuit said.
Those concerns took on new significance during last week’s execution attempt. Pike’s attorneys said she could be heard “crying and whimpering” during the procedure before complaining that her arm felt as though it was “about to burst open.” They also said one needle was bent at a 90-degree angle when it was removed.
CHRISTA PIKE OUT OF HOSPITAL AND RECOVERING IN PRISON AFTER BOTCHED TENNESSEE EXECUTION
It remains unclear whether Tennessee officials will attempt to execute Pike again. Lee has since halted the remaining executions scheduled in Tennessee for the rest of the year.
Pike was sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of 19-year-old classmate Colleen Slemmer. Pike and her then-boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, brutally attacked Slemmer with a box cutter and meat cleaver over Slemmer’s alleged interest in Shipp. Shipp, who was 17 years old at the time of the crime, was sentenced to life in prison.