Christa Pike, Confused After Failed Tennessee Execution, Is at Center of Legal Storm
New York Times · LC · trust 65/100
Her awareness and condition deepen ethical and legal questions after Tennessee’s failed attempt to execute her for murdering a classmate decades ago.
Listen · 6:50 min Share full article Christa Pike’s lawyers said she has a blood clot in one arm and pneumonia, and had not eaten — she was unable to swallow when her lawyers saw her. Credit... Seth Herald/Reuters By Emily Cochrane
Ms. Pike’s lawyers had been told to expect life support to end because her brain was not functioning after the attempt on Sept. 30 to execute her for killing a classmate decades before. But now, she was awake and in a swirl of what one lawyer called a mix of anger and confusion.
Her condition, disclosed on Wednesday after a court hearing, remains severe. She has a blood clot in one arm and pneumonia, and had not eaten — she was unable to swallow when her lawyers saw her. She could not move her arms, and her hands had swollen to resemble inflated surgical gloves, said the lawyer, Randy Spivey.
“She woke up in a hospital surrounded by people she didn’t know with a tube down her throat,” Mr. Spivey said during a news conference. “We don’t know the toll all of this will take, but Christa is a survivor.”
Ms. Pike’s awareness and evolving condition heightened the stakes of a procedural hearing in Nashville on Wednesday. A judge said she would order Tennessee to preserve records and evidence tied to the execution attempt and to ensure Ms. Pike could communicate easily with her lawyers.
The hearing came as Tennessee grapples with the ethical and legal questions surrounding the case of Ms. Pike, 50, the first person to survive injection drugs that were supposed to be lethal. A lawyer with the office of the state’s attorney general told a judge on Wednesday that he could not say whether Tennessee would try again to end her life.
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