The lone woman on Tennessee’s death row was still alive after she was administered two lethal injections, her lawyer said in a motion seeking to halt her execution Wednesday night, a stunning development after the Supreme Court had stepped in to allow the state to put her to death.
At 8:26 p.m. local time, witnesses said “executioners had injected both syringes of lethal injection chemicals” and Christa Pike was “still alive and snoring,” her lawyers said in a federal court filing.
They said Pike “has not lost consciousness and still has a heartbeat” and that curtains to the death chamber “have gone down twice.”
Every single thing about her case from the time of her arrest until now has been a complete fustercluck, it’s no surprise the execution didn’t work.
She literally told them, her lawyers literally told them, that she has a medical condition that will prevent the lethal injection drugs from working, but they’re so hell bent on murdering her that they could not just let her spend her life in prison. Yes, she brutally killed that girl, but the other two people who also brutally murdered that girl got life in prison for one, AND PAROLE for the other.
I’m not suggesting she’s innocent. She’s not. But why does every court have such a hard on for killing the woman? Abolish the death penalty, and do not give the state the right to kill it’s citizens. Please.
Because every hillbilly chucklehead in the state has a hard on for the death penalty.
JFC.
That’s fair. But it’s not just the Tennessee courts. She’s taken her case to the US supreme court multiple times.
And yeah, Tennessee can be conservative as fuck, and the education system leaves almost everything to be desired, but I lived there, 30 minutes from Knoxville, for 15 years. Most people are pretty against the death penalty anymore, at least most everyone I spoke to about it. And considering I did political organizing, I spoke to a lot of people of differing opinions. It’s actually one of the hooks we used to use when trying to convince people about more progressive or lefty policies. Start with the death penalty, as it’s normally the easiest way to get someone to the point of agreeing that they don’t always align with their political party or candidate
Wow things have changed or are different there. I remember the death penalty being pretty dang popular when I was younger
It’s still popular, until you start talking to them about it, or individual cases. People are generally “in favor” until they actually think about it for too long
People are often in favor of the theoretical death of evil humans, but the bureaucracy of administering the death penalty is too ridiculous and impractical.
On some issues the opinions of citizens are important, but in others I think citizens generally aren’t equipped to make a decision.
Another example might be taxes, or how much tax ought to be paid. Loads of people might vote to say they shouldn’t have to pay taxes, but very obviously they’re wrong.
American’s in particular seem ill equipped to separate the fact that someone may well “deserve” to die from the notion that delivering that death is not the best outcome for anyone.
No. Democracy is good for many reasons but especially because it requires people to explain to each other why they’re wrong and to thereby precipitate moral progress.
That’s why democracy anywhere is a threat to autocracy everywhere. It’s why evil people, religious people, etc., really hate democracy. Makes it hard to control others when they’re no longer morally depraved.
For instance, if you’re right that governments shouldn’t be administering the death penalty, you have to explain why and in doing so help people become less stupid.
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She also had serious MH issues at the time. Was she given adequate psych assessment before sentence? Was it fully taken into account in sentence or the decision to go ahead with execution?
Apparently not.
CONSERVATIVES fatansize about executions all the time, thats why. executions are red states way of placating the rabid voters.
it’s strongman politics. once a jury has condemned a prisoner to death, the whole dynamic surrounding their case shifts. no longer are they a person whose life carries value, even if that value is complicated by their actions. they become a shibboleth upon which every strongman politician must prove that they are not soft on crime. none of these appeals have taken into consideration the real facts of the case or the woman, but have been treated as an opportunity to prove to authoritarian supporters that this lawyer, this judge, this executive, whoever is able to step in, but doesn’t, to set things right is a big strong man that you should worship as a big strong man, and that they perform the role of big authoritarian daddy with aplomb.
What is the medical condition and went does it prevent the legal drugs from working?
She has a condition that causes blood clotting, some kind of thrombosis. Her lawyers told the courts that it could cause the injections to fail.
Other commenter is also correct. She was raped multiple times, and asked for a hanging instead of an injection because 1, she believes a botched hanging would be less awful a way to die than a botched lethal injection, and 2, because being strapped to a gurney (effectively tied to a bed) and surrounded by men and watched by strangers would be incredibly psychologically painful to her. The woman declined a last meal before they did this, id imagine she was too distraught to eat.
Oh wow.
Thanks for the write up, however depressing
Everything I have read says that she wanted another method of execution because strapping her to a guerney will trigger a PTSD episode.
That, yes. But also she has a blood clotting condition that her and her lawyers believed would make the injections fail to work correctly.
And we can see that’s what happened. Whether it’s because of the blood clots or not, I can’t say. But it sounds like they were spot on.
Literally most deaths by execution in the US are suffered by males (1665), not by females (18). Just fucking stop that “women always suffer more than men” bullshit, because it’s not true.
I’m with you here, however.
At no point did I say more women were murdered by the death penalty. I rhetorically inquired why the courts have such a hard on for killing this singular individual woman
Gonna just leave that there, because I genuine don’t want to get into why you were so quick to jump to the phrasing you used, or make assumptions about you based on that.
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