Judge Orders Officials to Save Evidence in Christa Pike’s Failed Execution

A Tennessee judge ordered the state Department of Correction to preserve all evidence related to the botched execution of death-row inmate Christa Pike.Luke Ihnen, one of Christa Pike’s attorneys, speaking in court in Nashville on Wednesday.Judge I’Ashea Myles on Wednesday sided with a motion filed by Pike’s legal team to preserve the evidence. The judge instructed the state Department of Correction to maintain “anything that was in the actual room” where the execution was supposed to take place. That included waste or anything related to the lethal-injection drugs used during the failed procedure, Myles said.Pike got two doses of pentobarbital, a sedative that at least 17 states use for capital punishment. The execution failed after the Tennessee Department of Correction couldn’t properly administer the lethal drugs.She was rushed to a Nashville-area hospital where she was intubated and put on a ventilator, her lawyers said in a court filing. Hospital staff worked to clear the pentobarbital from her system, they said.“On Monday night, it was our understanding that Christa was brain dead and that life support would be removed the next day,” said Randy Spivey, one of her lawyers. “But on Tuesday, to the shock of everyone, including me, including her team, including the medical team, Christa woke up and began talking.”Pike wanted to know where she was, Spivey said.“She is angry and confused about everything right now,” he said.Spivey said Pike, 50 years old, has a long road to recovery. She has a blood clot in one of her arms, pneumonia and is unable to swallow. She is unable to move either of her arms, he said. It is unknown what function she will have in her arms, he said.Luke Ihnen, another of Pike’s lawyers, said preserving the evidence was part of the effort to uncover what went wrong last week.“Christa, the court, the media, and the public should not simply take the state’s word about what happened last Wednesday,” Ihnen said. “Their word is shrouded in secrecy and legal jargon in attempts to obfuscate and obscure what really happened.”The state opposed the motion from Pike’s lawyers, citing a pending independent investigation of the failed execution and an existing federal court order to preserve evidence. John Ayers, assistant attorney general in the Tennessee Attorney General’s office, said Wednesday that the state was already taking steps to preserve the evidence, even without Judge Myles’s order.The Tennessee Department of Correction said that they followed established protocol and that the drug has consistently been effective. Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee halted executions in the state after the failed attempt to execute Pike. Lee said he had ordered a third-party review to determine why the execution failed.Pike’s attorneys previously warned the court that her small veins made it likely that she would experience unnecessary suffering and terror from lethal injections.Both of her arms were swollen, burned and blistered when she was admitted to the hospital, her lawyers said in the court filing. Pentobarbital burns upon contact, including skin, tissue and veins, they added.Pike was sentenced to be executed last week for the 1995 murder of Colleen Slemmer. Her legal team has called on the governor to commute her death sentence.Ayers, the assistant attorney general, said Wednesday he couldn’t say whether Pike would face a new execution order.“That’s within the purview of the Tennessee Supreme Court,” Ayers said.Write to Joseph De Avila at joseph.deavila@wsj.com