‘How Does That Happen?’: America’s Execution System Is Long Flawed
New York Times · LC · trust 28/100
The failed execution of Christa Pike, which left her clinging to life in Tennessee, was the latest grisly error to take place in an American execution chamber.
Listen · 7:26 min Share full article Emergency vehicles arrived at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville after the failed execution of Christa Pike. Credit... Denny Simmons / The Tennessean/USA TODAY NETWORK, via Reuters By Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs
Ms. Pike was given two doses of lethal pentobarbital but then rushed for medical care when it was clear she was still alive. She was unconscious, intubated and on a ventilator in a hospital as of Thursday night.
“It is hard to see how this can be allowed to continue — not only in Tennessee, but nationwide,” said Maya Foa, the chief executive of Reprieve, an anti-death penalty group. She called the failed attempt to kill Ms. Pike “one of the most catastrophic executions” in U.S. history.
In 2025, 47 people were executed in the United States, more than in any year since 2009, though still below the peak of 98 executed in 1999. Yet even as technology has evolved and new tactics have been tried on death row prisoners, officials continue to botch executions.
Prisoners have suffered for long periods as doctors fail to find a suitable vein. Some have died in gruesome, unintended situations involving blood or flames. But Ms. Pike, who was convicted of murder in the 1995 killing of her classmate, survived, and is now part of a minuscule cohort of prisoners to have done so.
On Thursday, President Trump expressed disbelief at Tennessee’s error. “How does that happen?” he said. “It shouldn’t be very difficult.”
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