Failed Christa Pike execution attempt triggers legal fight over evidence
Attorneys are disputing how evidence should be preserved after Tennessee death row inmate Christa Pike survived a botched lethal injection. Her lawyers are seeking medical records and physical evidence connected to the failed execution.
Florida, Alabama and Indiana are scheduled to execute inmates Thursday, potentially making it only the second day this year on which three death row prisoners are put to death within the same 24-hour period.
The previous triple-execution day occurred Aug. 13, when Oklahoma, Tennessee and Alabama carried out executions just hours apart.
Thursday’s execution in Florida would be the state’s 19th of 2026, tying the record it established last year. Alabama is preparing for its third execution this year, while Indiana is set to conduct its first.
Florida inmate Jesse Guardado, 64, is scheduled to die after admitting to and pleading guilty to the 2004 fatal stabbing of a 75-year-old woman who had helped him secure employment and a place to live.
Jesse Guardado, Michael Taylor and Jeffrey Weisheit are scheduled to be executed on the same day. (Florida, Alabama and Indiana Departments of Corrections)
Guardado killed Jackie Malone in her home, then took her jewelry box, $80 and other belongings to support his drug addiction.
“Jesse Guardado has accepted responsibility for killing Jackie Malone and has consistently expressed deep remorse. Florida should accept responsibility for what it did to him as a child, too,” Grace Hanna, executive director of Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, said in a statement calling on the state to stop the execution.
Executions have accelerated in Florida since Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis began signing a series of death warrants in 2025. The state carried out 19 executions last year, the most recorded under any Florida governor in a single year since the death penalty returned in 1976. Florida’s executions represented about 40% of the 47 executions nationwide in 2025.
The state has also conducted more than half of the 32 executions nationwide so far in 2026. Florida carried out two executions on the same day in July, the first such double execution by one state in nearly 10 years.
In Alabama, Michael Taylor, 54, is scheduled to be executed for the 1991 killings of an elderly couple. The victims were beaten with a metal bar during a robbery at their home. Authorities later found Taylor in Birmingham, roughly an hour away, driving the couple’s Cadillac.
Alabama plans to use lethal injection, despite objections from Taylor’s attorneys. A judge rejected their challenge to the method. Taylor had previously selected nitrogen gas, and his lawyers had sought to preserve that option.
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Attorney Kacey Keeton speaks at a Nov. 2, 2026, event at the Alabama Capitol in Montgomery opposing Michael Taylor’s scheduled execution. (AP Photo/Kim Chandler)
Opponents of capital punishment asked Republican Gov. Kay Ivey to reduce Taylor’s sentence to life in prison, saying he was only 19 at the time of the crime and too young to fully understand the consequences of his actions.
“If the state kills Michael, it is not the 19-year-old who made the worst mistake of his life who it kills. But the mature, well-respected, God-fearing man sitting in that cell today,” Esther Brown of Project Hope to Abolish the Death Penalty told The Associated Press.
Ivey denied the clemency petitions, allowing the execution to proceed as planned.
Indiana inmate Jeffrey Weisheit, 50, is scheduled to be executed for starting a 2010 house fire that killed his girlfriend’s two children, ages 8 and 5, as their relationship broke down.
Weisheit’s attorneys requested additional brain scans, citing his history of head injuries and mental health issues. They argued the testing could provide grounds for further review, but Republican Gov. Mike Braun denied the request.
Braun also refused requests to commute Weisheit’s death sentence to life in prison.
Thursday could be the second time this year that three people are executed on the same day. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)
Weisheit’s lawyers have separately questioned Indiana’s plan to use execution drugs supplied by a pharmacy scheduled for a disciplinary hearing before the Indiana Pharmacy Board next week.
The Indiana Department of Correction said it nevertheless remains confident the execution can be conducted “humanely.”
The scheduled executions come as lethal injection procedures face renewed scrutiny after Tennessee’s failed execution attempt in September. Death row inmate Christa Pike survived two doses of pentobarbital and was taken to a hospital. She has since been returned to prison.
