Tennessee’s prison chief will resign following the botched execution of Christa Pike earlier this week, Gov. Bill Lee announced Saturday.
Frank Strada, commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Correction, is expected to leave his post later this month. Lee provided no further details about the resignation.
Strada said he believes the department “carried out its responsibilities in accordance with the established protocol,” but added that stepping down is “in the best interest” of Tennessee residents as Lee’s independent investigation gets underway.
“I believe this review is entirely appropriate and necessary, and I look forward to doing everything I can to help determine exactly what occurred,” Strada said. Lee appointed Strada as commissioner in January 2023.
Pike was scheduled to die by lethal injection Wednesday, but the execution attempt failed twice. Her attorneys said Friday that Pike remains unconscious and intubated at a hospital in the Nashville area. She is on a ventilator and has sustained serious injuries to both arms, according to her lawyers. Medical staff are working to remove pentobarbital from her system.
Pike’s attorneys said the Tennessee Department of Correction’s IV team apparently failed to recognize that the IV lines had been improperly placed or that her veins had blown, allowing pentobarbital to enter her body.
In a statement Saturday, Pike’s lawyers called Strada’s resignation “justified,” while stressing that it “does nothing to help Christa now.”
Pike’s attorneys also asked a court to order the Tennessee Department of Correction to preserve all evidence tied to the failed execution. The department has maintained that it “followed every step of the State’s lawful, established execution protocol approved by the Attorney General’s Office.”
Pike was poised to become the first woman executed in Tennessee since the 19th century after the Supreme Court ruled that her execution could move forward. She was sentenced to death for the 1995 killing of her former classmate, Colleen Slemmer. Court records say Pike, then 18, tortured and killed Slemmer, 19, at the Job Corps Center in Knoxville, allegedly over remarks Slemmer had made about Pike’s relationship. Pike is now 50.
Alongside ordering the independent review, Lee has canceled the executions that had been scheduled in Tennessee for the remainder of the year.
