Christa Pike, a Tennessee death row inmate, remains unconscious and on a ventilator after the state’s attempt to execute her Wednesday night went wrong, according to her attorneys. Pike was scheduled to be put to death for the 1995 torture killing of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer and would have been the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years.
Her attorneys, Stephen Ferrell and Luke Ihnen, filed an emergency motion in Davidson County Chancery Court asking a judge to order the Tennessee Department of Correction to preserve all evidence connected to what they call the state’s “botched attempted execution.” They say the records are necessary to determine what happened, to protect Pike’s legal rights, and to establish accountability.
“Christa remains critically ill and is receiving medical care for the devastating effects of Wednesday night’s events,” the attorneys said in a statement Friday. “She is critically ill, unconscious, intubated and receiving breathing assistance through a ventilator. She is being treated for the serious effects of the pentobarbital administered during the execution attempt, including significant injuries to both arms.”
What the filing describes
According to the motion, the execution team struggled to establish IV access and used at least seven needles before administering two lethal doses of pentobarbital. The attorneys allege Pike suggested where staff should try inserting the IV, that one needle bent at a 90-degree angle when removed, and that she could be heard crying, whimpering and breathing loudly throughout the process.
The filing says Pike told those carrying out the execution, “My arm feels like it’s about to burst open,” and later asked, “Does this happen like that?” She arrived at the hospital with both arms “swollen, burned, and blistered,” the motion states. It cites medical experts comparing pentobarbital to “bleach” or “Drano” — a highly caustic substance capable of burning skin, tissue and veins.
The attorneys allege the execution team did not recognize that Pike’s IV lines had failed before administering a second dose. “Apparently at no point did any member of the execution team realize that the IV lines were not correctly placed or that the veins had blown and that the pentobarbital was, in whole or in part, entering Ms. Pike’s body,” the motion states. “Instead of remedying this failure, TDOC elected to prepare a backup set of syringes (if they were not also prepared earlier that day) and then administered another lethal dose of pentobarbital.”
Warnings dismissed, attorneys say
Pike’s legal team says it warned the state months in advance that her thrombocytosis, post-traumatic stress disorder, small veins and history of difficult needle insertion made IV complications significantly more likely. They warned that improper delivery of pentobarbital could cause “serious illness, needless suffering, and/or prolonged or lingering death.”
“Her concerns were called ‘speculation’; they were laughed off, scoffed at, and dismissed,” the motion states. “In the words of one media witness: we have a lot of questions and the Department of Correction has a lot of answers that it needs to provide to the public about what happened here. We agree.”
The motion argues the state now has an obligation to preserve evidence given what the attorneys describe as a clear violation of Pike’s constitutional rights. “In light of the manifest violation of Ms. Pike’s constitutional rights, the actionable nature of that violation, and the reasonable foreseeability of litigation, the Defendants have an affirmative duty to preserve all relevant physical, written, and electronic evidence,” the filing states.
A spokesperson for the Tennessee Attorney General’s Office said: “The governor has appropriately called for an investigation. We need to know what happened.”
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