Overview
- The state tried to execute Christa Pike on Sept. 30 by lethal injection using pentobarbital, she received two doses, survived and was taken to a Nashville hospital in critical condition.
- Pike has regained consciousness, is walking with help and eating a regular diet, but her lawyers say she has severe arm burns, a blood clot, pneumonia and ongoing problems with memory and concentration.
- Davidson County Chancellor I’Ashea Myles reopened Pike’s challenge to the protocol and ordered the Tennessee Department of Correction to preserve all execution-related evidence, including drugs, IV lines and recordings.
- Governor Bill Lee paused the state’s remaining scheduled executions and ordered an independent third-party review while the corrections commissioner resigned and prosecutors declined to say whether another execution would be attempted.
- Medical and legal commentary point to two likely failure points—faulty IV access that let pentobarbital seep into tissue rather than the bloodstream and potential problems with compounded drug supplies—and the review and court discovery could prompt changes to how states carry out lethal injections.