Independent inquiry ordered after failed execution of Pike, who was convicted of 1994 murder
Tennessee’s governor on Thursday said it was “deeply disturbing” that his state botched the execution of a death row prisoner who remained alive and snoring 40 minutes after receiving a double dose of the lethal drug that should have quickly killed her.
Bill Lee, a Republican, has suspended all executions in the state until at least the end of the year and ordered an independent inquiry after Wednesday night’s failed attempt to put to death Christa Pike, who was convicted of murder, at the execution chamber in Nashville.
Meanwhile, Pike, 50, remained in the hospital on Thursday afternoon. “We don’t have a sense of her prognosis or much update on her health at the moment, but we do know that she is alive right now and receiving life-saving medical care,” Randy Spivey, one of her attorneys, said at an afternoon press conference.
this is too fucked up and sad. She should be let go if she even recovered which I doubt will happen. Also if you read her case, she is not someone who deserved the death penality… She grew up with abuse and mental sickness, and comitted murder when she was 18… she served more than 3 decades and got tortured with chemicals into brain coma. It’s a fucked up unjust system to execute an 18 yr with such background
The death penalty is fucking barbaric and the idea that you can come up with a way to humanely kill a person is insane. What kind of psychopath do you have to be to sit down and put to paper an official protocol on how to execute another human being? What kind of psychopath do you have to be to feel you have the right to sentence someone to be executed? And what kind of psychopath do you have to be to partake in carrying out the execution? Psychopaths all around.
She’s now the latest entry on the List of botched executions on Wikipedia.
So not just medical observation but life-saving measures…?
I am against the death penalty, but honestly I think both may be the worst choice you could have made?
Killing is wrong so we’re going to kill you, but oops we messed up killing you so now you must have your life saved, presumably so we can kill you again.
What the fuck?
My reading of the situation is that she suffered severe brain damage. It might be debatable if ‘she’ is even there any more for them to try and kill a third time.
I don’t think a doctor at a hospital gets to change her level of care just because her patient is condemned to death.
Yeah but if you’re deliberately killing someone, why would you rush them to a hospital after you failed miserably and left them in a critical condition? So you can try again later?
For fucks sake, what a horrible situation. Just abolish the death penalty already.
Imagine waking up in the hospital where they have to get you healthy enough to discharge in order to send you back to death row
Yeah, pretty much anywhere else in the world that would be considered cruel and unusual.
It is so, SO much worse than this one incident.
How do they not have a backup plan or six for things like this.
Lethal injection administered and didn’t work, but she’s still asleep? Maybe start a new IV in a different vein? Apply pressure to her carotid arteries? Put an O2 mask on her and connect it to literally anything other than O2? Throw her out of the fucking window?
Killing each other is something we’re supposed to and good at…
If you’re going to kill people, there are so many better ways:
Long drop hanging: gets the job done, quite effective, mature technology. Sometimes rips a head off (gruesome, but not more painful to the victim) or fails to break the neck (leads to rapid unconsciousness due to interruption of blood supply to the brain and cerebral oedema, then death by asphyxiation / cardiac arrest)
Guillotine: very effective if the machine is well designed and maintained. Makes a bit of a mess, but if you do it in a room that’s designed like an abattoir, it’s easy enough to clean up. Probably not much suffering for the victim - it’s debatable whether one can maintain consciousness, but either way, not for a long time.
Shooting: can be relatively humane if done properly, but can be messed up quite badly. In East Germany they did it by an unexpected shot to the back of the head at close range, which is surprisingly humane, considering what that government was capable of.
Nitrogen gas: leads to rapid, painless loss of consciousness. The victim will convulse, but they’re not conscious anymore by that time. If your systems are set up properly, it’s very effective.
But the bottom line is that it’s not a good policy to kill convicted criminals. No justice system is perfect, so innocents get executed. It’s been repeatedly shown to be ineffective as a deterrent. It’s difficult to do well, so it ends up being expensive, in most cases more expensive than just keeping them locked up.
It’s not a deterrent killing the wrong person.
Context: the man arguing against capital punishment is a political satire magazine editor and the woman arguing for eventually became the UK’s home secretary. Home secretary is one of the highest jobs in UK politics, and is in control of the police and justice system…
Absolutely fucking wild.
Reading the eyewitness accounts from the botched execution, fucking wild is an understatement.
They had non medical trained staff administering it, old and untested drugs that came from unknown sources, they closed the blinds on multiple occasions so no one in the public really knows everything that happened behind the scenes.
One reporter even said they have never seen an execution like this and they have attended a lot.
Sounds like Percy fucking Wetmore was involved with this one.
They had non medical trained staff administering it
This is not unusual. Ethical medical personnel don’t perform executions.
Still haven’t seen an execution like that, only an attempt.
I wonder what her medical bill will be like.
It’ll be a killer.
Don’t worry, she’s a prisoner so the tax payer will fund her medical bills, no expense should be spared to save her so we can kill her (also at your expense).
'Murikkka, home of the many that MUST have guns, but also the same place that won’t just fucking shoot you with one as an execution. Fill you up with drugs till your body gives out though? Totally fine.
Aw but that means someone would have to pull the trigger!
Putting needles in someone for the purpose of killing them, is exactly the same as pulling the trigger. Plus ACAB, cops would line up to shoot people on death row.
When firing squads were a thing here there would be multiple shooters firing simultaneously but only one of them had live ammo. This was to “protect” the executioners from having to know who actually killed the person.
Normally only one would have a blank. You want multiple bullets to hit the target.
Oh I think that’s right. Either way accomplishes a stupid goal of prioritizing the executioners emotional health over the life of the person being executed.
I’m sure they would even have a sign up sheet for who gets to be on execution duty that week.
