Tennessee death row inmate survives 2 lethal injection doses in failed execution attempt

Tennessee officials were unable to execute death row inmate Christa Pike on Wednesday night after she remained alive following two doses of a lethal injection drug, according to court filings from her attorneys.

The failed execution prompted Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee to halt the state’s remaining scheduled execution this year and order "a comprehensive, third-party review to determine exactly what occurred." Pike was taken to a hospital by ambulance for treatment, her attorneys said.

"Carrying out a lawfully imposed sentence is among the State's most serious responsibilities, and the people of Tennessee expect it to be done in a manner that is not only legal and constitutional, but is effective," Lee said in a statement.

The Tennessee Department of Correction said it "followed every step of the State's lawful, established execution protocol approved by the Attorney General's Office."

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Witnesses said Pike was strapped to a gurney when the curtains to the execution chamber were raised at 7:27 p.m. local time. In what were expected to be her final words, Pike said she was "at peace."

But the execution did not proceed as expected. Pike remained awake and at one point raised her head, asking prison officials whether her arm was supposed to feel that way.

At 8:26 p.m. local time, witnesses said the executioners had "injected both syringes of lethal injection chemicals and Pike is still alive and snoring," her lawyers said in a federal court filing, according to The Associated Press. 

Pike’s attorneys said in emergency court filings that she "has not lost consciousness and still has a heartbeat," arguing that the attempted execution was causing "unnecessary agony."

At 8:53 p.m., media witnesses were escorted from the area after Pike could still be heard snoring behind the closed curtain.

The state’s protocol calls for a secondary set of drug syringes to be administered "if the inmate is not deceased" after the first set. The protocol does not specify what should happen if the inmate remains alive after the second set.

This comes after the U.S. Supreme Court late Wednesday vacated a last-minute stay that had temporarily spared her from becoming the first woman executed in the state since the early 1800s.

The Supreme Court granted Tennessee's application to vacate the stay issued Wednesday morning by the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, clearing the way for the state to carry out Pike's execution.

In a 2-1 split decision, the Sixth Circuit issued a stay "until further notice" as the court weighed motions filed by Pike's attorneys and the Tennessee Attorney General's Office.

The state immediately appealed to the Supreme Court, seeking to have the stay lifted.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented from the Supreme Court's decision, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Sotomayor argued that the Sixth Circuit should have been given time to consider Pike's pending legal challenge before the execution proceeded.

Read the Court of Appeals order:

"In capital cases, "[a]ppreciation of our own fallibility, and respect for the judgment of an appellate tribunal," demand caution before "acting irretrievably.""

She added that the Supreme Court "chooses to overlook that principle precisely when it matters most."

Pike, 50, was 18 in 1995 when she, her boyfriend and another person beat, kicked and stabbed their 19-year-old classmate Colleen Slemmer to death in a brutal "satanic" attack that Pike claimed took between 30 minutes and an hour, according to court documents.

Pike and Slemmer knew each other through a vocational program in Knoxville called the Job Corps Center, the documents state.

Pike had accused Slemmer of "trying to get [her] boyfriend" and "running her mouth," the case file shows. A day before the killing, she told another classmate she wanted to kill Slemmer because she "just felt mean that day," according to the records. She was armed with a box cutter and a meat cleaver.

Pike and her accomplices lured Slemmer out, telling her they wanted to go to a music store and pick up some marijuana they'd hidden in a park nearby.

Pike attacked her, knocked her to the ground and hit her in the face with her knee and foot, according to court documents.

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At one point, Slemmer broke away from Pike and tried to flee, but Pike's boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, grabbed her and held her down while Pike slashed her with the box cutter. The victim begged for her life, but the attackers kept going. At some point, they gagged her with a hair tie.

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Shipp also carved pentagrams into the victim's face and chest.

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At trial, forensic psychiatrist Dr. William Bernet testified that the crime had "satanic elements" but also appeared to involve "the phenomenon of collective aggression, in which a group of people become emotionally aroused and 'the end result is that they engage in some kind of violent, extremely violent activity,'" court records show.

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Dr. Eric Engum testified that Pike had been diagnosed with "very severe borderline personality disorder" in addition to showing signs of cannabis dependence and depression. However, he said, she had no symptoms of brain damage or insanity.

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Pike took a piece of the victim's crushed skull as a trophy and later showed it off in school, recounting that Slemmer had begged the trio to stop, according to court records. Pike told the friend she'd cut Slemmer's throat a half-dozen times and then smashed her head with a rock. She showed off her bloodstained sneakers to another classmate and brought Slemmer's skull fragment to breakfast the next morning.

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Neither Shipp nor the third attacker, Shadolla Peterson, received death sentences. Shipp was under 18 at the time and not eligible for capital punishment. Peterson testified for the state.

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Pike's supporters counter that her defense did a poor job presenting mitigating factors before her sentencing, including untreated bipolar disorder and PTSD stemming from repeated domestic violence and sexual assaults. Just under 25,000 people had signed a petition to Gov. Bill Lee asking him to commute her death sentence to life in prison.

The Associated Press and Fox News' Shannon Bream and Bill Mears contributed to this report.

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