Christa Pike became the first known death row inmate to survive a lethal injection Wednesday, in an incident an expert described as “singular and unparalleled.”
Pike, 50, was secured to a gurney in the execution chamber at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution shortly before 7:30 p.m. CDT. Officials administered two doses of pentobarbital, but neither produced the intended result of stopping her breathing and heartbeat.
Robin Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said seven other condemned prisoners had survived complications after execution teams were unable to establish intravenous access. However, she said no inmate was known to have survived after receiving the lethal drug cocktail.
Maher called Pike’s case “singular and unparalleled.” Even journalists with extensive experience observing executions said the events they witnessed were not “normal.”
Following the failed second dose, Pike’s attorneys submitted an emergency request to halt the execution, arguing that she was enduring “unnecessary agony.” District Judge Clifton L. Corker granted the motion.
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Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee promptly directed officials to conduct a “comprehensive, third-party review to determine exactly what occurred” and put the state’s final scheduled execution of the year on hold.
“Carrying out a lawfully imposed sentence is among the State’s most serious responsibilities, and the people of Tennessee expect it to be done in a manner that is not only legal and constitutional, but is effective,” Lee said.
The Tennessee Department of Correction said it had “followed every step of the State’s lawful, established execution protocol approved by the Attorney General’s Office.”
Pike was sentenced to death in 1996 for killing a classmate whom she and her boyfriend lured to an isolated area near the University of Tennessee campus. Prosecutors said the pair brutally beat and tortured the victim before crushing her skull with a piece of asphalt.
Tennessee law permits officials to administer a second lethal dose when the first fails. The state’s protocol, however, does not specify how officials should proceed if the second dose is also unsuccessful.
With Post wires
