Governor halts state executions, orders independent review
Frank Strada is resigning as Tennessee’s prison chief after the failed September 30 execution attempt. The Tennessee Department of Correction defended the protocol it used, saying “the protocol does not allow for additional procedures beyond what was carried out.”
Pike’s attorneys said that while receiving the two doses, “she could be heard crying, whimpering, and breathing loudly throughout the procedure,” her lawyers said. She was then sent to a hospital in an ambulance.
As of Thursday night, Pike was unconscious, intubated and on a ventilator, according to her lawyers. Doctors at a Nashville hospital are attempting to clear the drugs from her system, according to legal filings.
Governor Lee said in Saturday’s joint statement that Strada “served with integrity” and “put the interests of Tennesseans first during this difficult moment.” The governor did not say whether the state would attempt to execute Pike again. Authorities have not offered an explanation for why the two injections failed to kill her.
The execution went ahead only after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected two separate efforts to halt it. Lee also denied a clemency request from Pike, who was the only woman on Tennessee’s death row.
Pike was 18 when she and her then-boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, beat, tortured and killed 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in Knoxville in 1995. She was sentenced to death the following year after a media frenzy around the killing.
Her attorneys had previously warned that her medical history — including thrombocytosis, a blood-clotting condition, and small veins — posed a risk of “unnecessary” pain and suffering during a lethal injection. The Tennessee Department of Correction has not explained what went wrong during the procedure.
On Friday, Pike’s lawyers filed an emergency motion to preserve “any and all evidence” related to the failed execution. They are also seeking to have her death sentence commuted.