Christa Pike regains consciousness after failed Tennessee execution, lawyers say

Christa Pike has regained consciousness after surviving Tennessee's failed lethal injection attempt. The case now heads to court as her lawyers seek to preserve evidence and challenge the state's conduct.Christa Pike is the first woman Tennessee tried to execute in more than 200 years. (Reuters photo)Christa Pike, the Tennessee death-row inmate who survived an attempt to execute her by lethal injection last week, has regained consciousness and is speaking, her lawyers said on Tuesday.Pike, 50, remains in hospital under medical care after the failed execution, during which prison officials struggled to establish intravenous lines and administer the lethal drug. Her lawyers said she has suffered severe injuries to both arms and is still “handcuffed and shackled” to her hospital bed.“Against all odds, Christa Pike is conscious, speaking and continues to receive critical medical care,” her public defence attorneys said in a statement.Her prognosis remains uncertain, the lawyers said, adding that they expect her recovery to be lengthy. A hearing in Pike’s case is scheduled for Wednesday in Davidson County Chancery Court. The hearing concerns her lawyers’ request for a court order to preserve evidence from the failed execution. They say the evidence could show that the Tennessee Department of Correction violated Pike’s constitutional rights by subjecting her to cruel and unusual punishment. Pike was not expected to attend the hearing, a spokesperson said.WHAT HAPPENED DURING THE FAILED EXECUTIONPike survived Tennessee’s attempt to execute her on the night of September 30 at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville. She has remained hospitalised since then. She was initially unconscious and critically ill following the procedure. Her lawyers said on Friday that she was on a ventilator while doctors worked to remove pentobarbital, the drug used in the execution attempt, from her system.The execution lasted roughly 2 hours and descended into a prolonged struggle as Correction Department personnel tried to administer two doses of pentobarbital intravenously, according to Pike’s attorneys and journalists who witnessed the attempt.Pike was heard gasping, crying, whimpering and breathing heavily during much of the procedure. At one point, she said: “My arm feels like it’s about to burst open.”Attempts to establish IV lines left both of her arms “swollen, burned and blistered”, her lawyers said in court filings. They alleged that pentobarbital, a highly alkaline and caustic substance, leaked into the tissue beneath her skin.Pike’s lawyers also accused state officials of ignoring warnings from her doctors that her small veins and a blood disorder would make intravenous access particularly difficult.During the execution attempt, her lawyers filed an emergency motion asking the court to halt the procedure. By that point, prison officials had stopped trying to administer the drugs and called an ambulance, according to court records.The Tennessee Department of Correction defended its handling of the incident that night, saying it had “followed every step of the state’s lawful, established execution protocol”.But the episode has since led to changes at the top of the department. Republican Governor Bill Lee announced on Saturday that Correction Department Commissioner Frank Strada had resigned and would leave his post this month.Lee had already ordered a suspension of all scheduled executions in Tennessee for the remainder of the year and called for an independent review of what happened during Pike’s execution attempt.PIKE'S CLEMENCY BID CITED CHILDHOOD TRAUMATwo days before Pike was scheduled to be executed, Lee rejected her request to have her death sentence commuted to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.Her clemency petition argued that her death sentence had failed to adequately account for her own history of childhood trauma. Her lawyers said she had been sexually abused, neglected and suffered from untreated mental illness.Pike had been the only woman on Tennessee’s death row for years and, according to her lawyers, had spent nearly three decades in solitary confinement.Her case has now put her in a unique position in US capital punishment history. She went from being the first woman Tennessee had attempted to execute in roughly two centuries to becoming the first person in the United States known to have survived after execution drugs were administered.Death penalty opponents said the incident underscored what they consider the inherent brutality of executions. The failed procedure also renewed questions over whether lethal injections can be carried out without violating constitutional protections against cruel and unusual punishment.THE 30-YEAR-OLD MURDER CASEPike’s death sentence stems from the 1995 torture and killing of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, a schoolmate.Pike was 18 in January 1995 when she, her 17-year-old boyfriend Tadaryl Shipp and another companion lured Slemmer into a wooded area on the University of Tennessee campus in Knoxville and killed her.The brutality of the murder attracted widespread media attention. Trial testimony said Shipp carved the shape of a pentagram into Slemmer’s chest, while Pike struck her in the head with a piece of asphalt and later took a fragment of her skull as a souvenir.Prosecutors said Pike viewed Slemmer as a rival for Shipp’s affections.Pike and Shipp confessed to the killing and were convicted of first-degree murder. Pike was sentenced to death, while Shipp received life in prison with the possibility of parole.Their co-defendant, Shadolla Peterson, who was 18 at the time and acted as a lookout, testified for the prosecution and received probation.The case has kept Pike on death row for nearly 30 years. Her failed execution last week has now opened a new legal chapter, with her lawyers seeking to preserve evidence from the procedure and challenge the state’s handling of it.- EndsWith inputs from Reuters