A prominent Catholic anti-death penalty group is criticizing Tennessee for its botched execution attempt of convicted murderer Christa Pike, describing the incident as “horrifying” and “unprecedented.”
Pike, who was convicted in 1996 of the brutal 1995 torture and killing of Colleen Slemmer in Knoxville, was scheduled to be executed on Sept. 30 by lethal injection.
Yet officials said she survived the administration of two syringes of lethal pentobarbital, after which she was transported to a medical facility for treatment.
Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee subsequently suspended executions in the state for the remainder of the year and ordered an investigation into the state’s capital punishment procedures.
In a statement on Oct. 1, Krisanne Vaillancourt Murphy, executive director of Catholic Mobilizing Network, said the group was “stunned and bewildered” by the “unprecedented” incident.
Valliancourt Murphy said the group, which works to oppose the death penalty across the U.S., was praying for both Pike and for Slemmer’s family; it acknowledged that the situation “must surely be retraumatizing” for the latter.
The New York Times notes that Christa Pike is currently in critical condition:
Little was known about her condition, other than that she was being given “lifesaving care.” It is the first time in the modern era of capital punishment that someone received an execution drug and survived, the nonpartisan Death Penalty Information Center said.
Randy Spivey, one of her lawyers, described what he said was a “torturous” experience in the execution chamber, where Ms. Pike’s left arm was pierced by at least seven needles, her right arm turned purple, and she spoke about a burning sensation.
At one point, he said, Ms. Pike tried to help her executioners. She asked them to “‘please try up on my shoulder higher,’” he recalled.
The execution, Mr. Spivey asserted, was shrouded in secrecy, with her lawyers struggling to get information. Her lawyers had repeatedly warned in court that Ms. Pike’s execution could go awry because of her small veins and her medical history.
“We may never know what all she was suffering through, either because she can’t remember it, she can’t tell it, or it overwhelms her,” said Stephen Ferrell, from the Federal Defender Services of Eastern Tennessee. It fulfilled Ms. Pike’s greatest fear, he said, which was “a fear of a prolonged, painful, traumatic death.”
“And that’s what happened,” Mr. Ferrell said. “Minus the death.”
The failed execution, the second this year in Tennessee, led Gov. Bill Lee, a Republican, to call off all executions for the remainder of the year. Mr. Spivey and Ms. Pike’s legal team called on him to reconsider allowing Ms. Pike to serve the remainder of her life in prison, a request he had rejected earlier this week. Ms. Pike, now 50, has expressed remorse for the 1995 murder of a classmate.
“We at this point do not know the ramifications of the chemical torture that she has endured,” Mr. Spivey said. He called it “cruel.”
UPDATE: The Times has more on her condition. Details:
Christa Pike was unconscious, intubated and on a ventilator in a Nashville hospital as of Thursday evening, a day after surviving a botched execution attempt, her lawyers said in a court filing
Ms. Pike was critically ill, they wrote in a Friday filing in Davidson County Chancery Court, and both of her arms were swollen, burned and blistered when she arrived at the hospital.
Ms. Pike’s medical condition, some legal experts said, raises questions about whether the state could attempt to execute her again if she is not fully cognizant or capable of understanding what is happening.
“Hospital staff are working to save Ms. Pike’s life and to clear the pentobarbital from her system,” the lawyers wrote.
Catholic teaching on the death penalty was revised in 2018. It states in the Catechism:
2267. Recourse to the death penalty on the part of legitimate authority, following a fair trial, was long considered an appropriate response to the gravity of certain crimes and an acceptable, albeit extreme, means of safeguarding the common good.
Today, however, there is an increasing awareness that the dignity of the person is not lost even after the commission of very serious crimes. In addition, a new understanding has emerged of the significance of penal sanctions imposed by the state. Lastly, more effective systems of detention have been developed, which ensure the due protection of citizens but, at the same time, do not definitively deprive the guilty of the possibility of redemption.
Consequently, the Church teaches, in the light of the Gospel, that “the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person,” and she works with determination for its abolition worldwide.
