Christa Pike’s execution by lethal injection fails in Tennessee

Witnesses say Tennessee officials were unable to execute Christa Pike after giving her two doses of the sedative, pentobarbital.

A picture taken on December 4, 2007, shows death row inmate Christa Pike entering a Knox County Criminal Court in Knoxville, Tennessee, US [J Miles Cary/ Knoxville News Sentinel/USA Today via Reuters]

Officials in the United States have failed to put a Tennessee woman to death for a murder she committed in 1995, after the lethal injection was halted for hours as courts considered a last-minute appeal to stay her execution.

Christa Gail Pike, 50, had been scheduled to die on Wednesday for a killing she committed at age 18, after the US Supreme Court overturned an appeals court ruling that stopped the lethal injection just an hour before it was to start.

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Her death would have been Tennessee’s first execution of a woman in at least 200 years.

Following the top court’s ruling, officials attempted to go ahead with the execution as planned and appeared to give Pike two doses of the sedative pentobarbital, according to media witnesses.

At 7:46pm local time (23:46 GMT), prison officials closed the curtain separating Pike from the media viewing room. It was raised three minutes later, when witnesses said Pike could be heard loudly snoring.

The curtain was closed again at 8:06pm. Witnesses continued to hear Pike snoring until the microphone was switched off at about 8:53pm, when they were told to leave the area. Emergency vehicles were seen coming and going from the prison.

The Tennessee Department of Correction did not immediately explain why the execution had not been completed.

Supreme Court ruling

Pike had initially been scheduled to die on Wednesday morning , and witnesses had already gathered at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville when the 6th Circuit US Court of Appeals voted 2-1 to issue a stay.

The appeals court said a delay was needed to consider whether Pike’s allegations of childhood sexual abuse were fully considered during her sentencing.

Later on Wednesday, the Supreme Court cleared the way for the execution to proceed. Its conservative majority did not explain the decision, while the three liberal justices dissented. Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that vacating the stay “unnecessarily prevents” the appeals court from giving due consideration to Pike’s claim.

Tennessee’s attorney general had argued that delaying the execution traumatised the family of Pike’s victim, Colleen Slemmer, and rewarded what it called “abusive delay tactics”.

Pike and her boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, were convicted of the fatal stabbing and beating in 1995 of 19-year-old Slemmer, their classmate at a job training facility in Knoxville.

Shipp was 17 when the crime happened and received a sentence of life in prison with the possibility of parole. Pike was the only one sentenced to death.

Pike does not deny committing the killing, but her supporters argue the state should consider her age at the time, her mental illness and her allegations of severe sexual abuse, including that she was raped from early childhood.

“It is inconceivable that in the 21st century, the criminal justice system is poised to execute a survivor of rape and child sexual abuse whose jury never had the opportunity to consider those facts in weighing the defendant’s moral culpability,” her lawyers wrote in a filing.

After the killing, Pike was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder.

In her clemency petition, she said she had initially intended to fight Slemmer but killed her in a frenzied attack when she could not “put the brakes on”.

“I was a mentally ill 18-year-old kid. It took me numerous years to even realise the gravity of what I’d done. Even more to accept how many lives I affected. I took the life of someone’s child, sister, friend. It sickens me now to think I had the ability to commit such a crime,” Pike said in a statement.

Slemmer’s mother has said she wants Pike’s death sentence carried out after waiting decades for the execution.

Tennessee has not executed a woman for at least 200 years, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

Since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, 18 women have been executed in the US, representing about 1 percent of all executions, according to the centre.

目击者称，田纳西州官员在给克丽斯塔·派克注射了两剂镇静剂戊巴比妥后，未能将其处决。

2007年12月4日拍摄的一张照片显示，死刑犯克丽斯塔·派克进入位于美国田纳西州诺克斯维尔的诺克斯县刑事法院。[J Miles Cary/ Knoxville News Sentinel/USA Today via Reuters]

美国官员未能对一名田纳西州女子执行死刑，该女子因 1995 年犯下的谋杀罪而被处决。此前，由于法院考虑了她最后一刻提出的暂缓执行死刑的上诉，注射死刑被暂停了数小时。

现年 50 岁的克丽斯塔·盖尔·派克原定于周三被执行死刑，她因 18 岁时犯下的杀人罪而被判处死刑。此前，美国最高法院推翻了上诉法院的裁决，该裁决在死刑执行前一小时叫停了注射死刑。

美国参议院否决了一项要求就西岸遇害美国人事件提交报告的决议（共四项，此为第一项）

宾夕法尼亚州确认第五例麻疹相关死亡病例，美国疫情持续蔓延（共4例，此为第2例）

美国上诉法院叫停田纳西州对克丽斯塔·派克的死刑执行（共4例，此为第3例）

克丽斯塔·派克寻求枪决而非注射死刑：美国死刑执行内幕

她的死刑将是田纳西州至少200年来首次处决女性。

最高法院做出裁决后，官员们试图按计划执行死刑，据媒体目击者称，他们似乎给派克注射了两剂镇静剂戊巴比妥。

当地时间晚上7点46分（格林尼治标准时间23点46分），监狱官员拉上了将派克与媒体观察室隔开的帘子。三分钟后，帘子被拉开，据目击者称，这时可以听到派克发出响亮的鼾声。

晚上8点06分，帘子再次拉上。目击者们持续听到派克打鼾，直到晚上8点53分左右麦克风被关闭，他们才被告知离开该区域。可以看到紧急车辆进出监狱。

田纳西州惩教部门没有立即解释为什么死刑执行没有完成。

最高法院裁决

派克原定于周三上午被处决，证人已经聚集在纳什维尔的里弗本德最高安全级别监狱，而美国第六巡回上诉法院以 2 比 1 的投票结果决定暂缓执行死刑。

上诉法院表示，需要推迟审理，以考虑在对派克进行量刑时，是否充分考虑了她关于童年时期遭受性虐待的指控。

周三晚些时候，最高法院为执行死刑扫清了障碍。保守派大法官们没有解释这一决定，而三位自由派大法官则持反对意见。索尼娅·索托马约尔大法官在反对意见书中写道，撤销暂缓执行令“不必要地阻碍”上诉法院对派克的诉求进行充分审议。

田纳西州总检察长辩称，推迟执行死刑给派克的受害者科琳·斯莱默的家人造成了精神创伤，并助长了所谓的“滥用拖延战术”。

派克和她的男友塔达里尔·希普因在 1995 年刺死并殴打 19 岁的斯莱默而被定罪，斯莱默是他们在诺克斯维尔一所职业培训机构的同学。

希普犯罪时年仅17岁，被判处终身监禁，但有可能获得假释。派克是唯一被判处死刑的人。

派克不否认犯下杀人罪，但她的支持者认为，州政府应该考虑她当时的年龄、精神疾病以及她提出的严重性虐待指控，包括她从小就遭到强奸。

“令人难以置信的是，在 21 世纪，刑事司法系统竟然准备处决一名强奸和儿童性虐待的幸存者，而陪审团却从未有机会在权衡被告的道德罪责时考虑这些事实，”她的律师在一份文件中写道。

杀人事件发生后，派克被诊断出患有双相情感障碍和创伤后应激障碍。

她在请求宽恕时说，她最初打算与斯莱默搏斗，但后来因为无法“控制自己”，在疯狂的攻击中杀死了她。

“我当时是个患有精神疾病的18岁少年。我花了多年时间才意识到自己所作所为的严重性。更久之后，我才接受自己影响了多少人的生活。我夺走了别人的孩子、姐妹、朋友的生命。现在想到自己竟然有能力犯下这样的罪行，我就感到恶心，”派克在一份声明中说道。

斯莱默的母亲表示，她希望派克的死刑得到执行，她已经等了几十年才盼到这一天。

据死刑信息中心称，田纳西州至少200年来没有处决过女性。

据该中心统计，自最高法院于 1976 年恢复死刑以来，美国已有 18 名女性被处决，约占所有死刑执行的 1%。