The Execution of Christa Pike, women convicted of brutal murder in the US state of Tennessee, turned into a legal and medical mess after, according to US media, she survived receiving two lethal injections.
Pike (49) was scheduled to be executed on Wednesday evening prison Riverbend near Nashville. It would be the first execution of a woman in Tennessee in more than two centuries.
Just an hour before the sentence was to be carried out, a judge halted the execution, saying there were serious questions about the legality of the procedure that led to the death sentence. The defense argued that the court did not adequately consider the severe abuse and trauma that Pike, according to her own statements, experienced as a child.
The execution started as planned, but the situation changed
However, the state of Tennessee immediately appealed to the US Supreme Court, which lifted the temporary ban and allowed the execution of the death penalty.
The decision was not unanimous. Liberal justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagen and Kentaji Brown Jackson opposed the execution.
"I see no reason to bypass the normal review process, especially given the serious consequences of a possible wrong decision," Sotomayor wrote, describing the court's actions as "exceptional."
After the decision of the Supreme Court, the execution began as planned. But then things took an unexpected turn.
According to reports from the American media and the AP agency, Pike was administered two lethal injections. However, about 40 minutes later she was still conscious. Journalists who followed the execution of the sentence were then taken out of the facility, and the authorities stopped providing information.
Prison spokeswoman Dorinda Carter said only that she could not explain what happened at this time.
Krista Pike 'not pronounced dead'
Not long after, Judge Kyle Hixon announced that the state had informed the court that Krista Pike "has not been pronounced dead." The prison administration then ordered immediate medical intervention and her transport to the hospital.
Krista Pike was sentenced to death for one of the most brutal murders in Tennessee history. In 1995, when she was 18, she and two other teenagers lured 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer to a secluded area near the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.
According to the verdict, Pike beat, kicked, stabbed the victim and then smashed her head with a piece of asphalt.
Since 1996, she has been in prison awaiting execution and was the only woman on death row in Tennessee.
What exactly happened during the execution and what is the condition of Krista Pike, the authorities have not yet announced. The case that already caused great controversy due to the issue of the death penalty could now also open up new questions about the manner of its execution.
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