US execution survivor Christa Pike says she is now in ‘constant pain’

Pike, 50, is being held in solitary confinement and faces an uncertain future after surviving a failed lethal injection.

A picture taken on December 4, 2007, shows death row inmate Christa Pike entering the Knox County Criminal Court in Knoxville, Tennessee, US [File: J. Miles Cary/Reuters]

An American woman who survived an execution in a Tennessee prison has spoken out for the first time.

In a statement released via her legal team on Friday, Christa Pike, 50, said she is now in constant pain and struggling to speak.

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“There hasn’t been a moment since that night when I haven’t been in pain,” Pike said, adding that the pain is both “physical and emotional”.

“I had not contemplated life beyond that night, and I’m deeply hurt by the incompetence that has put so many people in this terrible position,” Pike said.

Pike and her boyfriend tortured, stabbed and beat a 19-year-old classmate to death in 1995. As Pike was 18 at the time, she was handed the death sentence.

The victim’s mother travelled from Florida to witness Pike’s execution.

Pike said she “continues to think” about the victim’s family and the “terrible pain and loss they have endured”.

Pike’s lawyers say the two separate doses of the lethal drug phenobarbital administered to her on September 30 may have failed to kill her because the drug did not enter her bloodstream. Instead, it pooled in her arms, leaving them burned and blistered.

Pike was hospitalised and unconscious for days following the botched execution.

Despite her ordeal, Pike remains scheduled to die, and is being held in solitary confinement in the interim.

Her legal team has asked a federal judge to allow her to interact with other prisoners, saying her isolation in the wake of the failed execution has caused “significant psychological harm and trauma”.

Her legal team has also asked Tennessee’s Republican Governor Bill Lee to change her sentence to life in prison.

Last week, however, Lee told reporters that he “suspects” her sentence will be the same as before, “unless otherwise determined by the courts”.

The failed execution has brought renewed scrutiny to how Tennessee carries out death sentences.

The Tennessee governor has organised an independent review of the failed execution and postponed the state’s other lethal injection scheduled for this year.

Frank Strada, commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Correction, announced his resignation in the wake of Pike’s failed execution.

现年 50 岁的派克被单独监禁，在一次注射死刑失败后幸存下来，他的未来充满不确定性。

2007 年 12 月 4 日拍摄的照片显示，死刑犯克丽斯塔·派克进入美国田纳西州诺克斯维尔的诺克斯县刑事法院。[图片来源：J. Miles Cary/路透社]

一名在田纳西州监狱经历死刑后幸存下来的美国女性首次公开讲述了自己的经历。

克丽斯塔·派克（Christa Pike）现年50岁，周五通过她的法律团队发表声明称，她现在持续感到疼痛，并且说话都很困难。

克丽斯塔·派克案（共3例，此为第1例）凸显了美国死刑执行失败的普遍性

名单2/3：克丽斯塔·派克出院并返回田纳西州监狱

教皇称死刑“不可接受”，美国计划直播死刑执行（共3条，此为第3条）。

“从那天晚上起，我无时无刻不在承受痛苦，”派克说，并补充说这种痛苦既有“身体上的”，也有“精神上的”。

“在那晚之后，我没有考虑过生活会怎样，而正是这种无能让这么多人陷入如此可怕的境地，我对此深感痛心，”派克说道。

1995年，派克和她的男友对一名19岁的同学进行折磨、刺伤和殴打致死。由于派克当时只有18岁，她被判处死刑。

受害者的母亲从佛罗里达州赶来，亲眼目睹了派克的死刑执行。

派克表示，她“一直惦记着”受害者的家人，以及他们所遭受的“可怕的痛苦和损失”。

派克的律师称，9月30日给她注射的两剂致命药物苯巴比妥可能并未致其死亡，因为药物并未进入她的血液。相反，药物积聚在她的手臂上，导致手臂灼伤和起水泡。

行刑失败后，派克被送往医院，昏迷了好几天。

尽管经历了种种磨难，派克的死刑仍已确定，在此期间她将被单独监禁。

她的法律团队已请求联邦法官允许她与其他囚犯互动，称在死刑执行失败后，她的隔离给她造成了“严重的心理伤害和创伤”。

她的法律团队还请求田纳西州共和党州长比尔·李将她的刑期改为终身监禁。

然而，上周李告诉记者，他“怀疑”她的刑期将与之前相同，“除非法院另有裁定”。

这次死刑执行失败再次引发了人们对田纳西州如何执行死刑的关注。

田纳西州州长已组织对此次失败的死刑执行进行独立审查，并推迟了该州今年计划执行的另一次注射死刑。

在派克死刑执行失败后，田纳西州惩教署署长弗兰克·斯特拉达宣布辞职。