Judge orders preservation of Pike execution chamber drugs and equipment

Lawyers tell court Pike has pneumonia, blood clot, and cannot move her arms

At a hearing in Nashville on Wednesday, judge I’Ashea Myles said that “Anything that was in the actual room” during the attempted execution a week ago must be preserved by the state, including every drug, intravenous line, and piece of tubing used in the death chamber. Pike, 50, survived a lengthy procedure in the execution chamber and regained consciousness on Tuesday, six days after Tennessee prison staff administered two supposedly lethal doses of the barbiturate pentobarbital without successfully killing her. She was taken from the execution chamber to a hospital unconscious, placed on a ventilator, and declared in critical condition before waking and speaking.

Her lawyer, Randy Spivey, described her condition at a press conference after the hearing, telling reporters that she has pneumonia, a blood clot, and is unable to move either of her badly injured arms. “The first thing she said was: ‘Where am I and who are you?’” one of her lawyers told the court on Wednesday afternoon. Spivey added that “There’s still a lot of cognitive confusion, and so I will say that she has wanted to know what’s happened, and she’s asked about several people. She’s asked about her team. She’s asked about the victim’s family … I think she is angry and confused about everything right now.”

Spivey said the shape of her hands resembled an inflated surgical glove and that it remained unclear “what if any function” she would regain in her arms. He had previously counted seven needles in her left arm, “one of which appeared to be bent when it was pulled from her.” Pike had lifted her head from the execution gurney to say her arms were burning as the drug was administered, and Spivey called the process “cruel and torturous.”

Pike’s legal team accused Tennessee officials of “secreting away” evidence at Wednesday’s hearing. Attorney Luke Ihnen told the judge that the items from the first attempt could be central to any subsequent legal challenge, arguing that the state had not committed to not attempting a future execution. “The state has made no promises that Ms Pike will not be subject to a future execution, and the evidence that we are seeking to preserve now is relevant for any future challenge that she makes, because as we pled in January, the same thing is likely to happen,” Ihnen said.

Pike’s lawyers also raised concerns about her continued restraint in the hospital. Spivey told the judge that medical staff had asked the Tennessee correction department to remove her shackles and had been refused. “Based on our understanding, medical staff have asked that the shackles be removed and have been denied that request,” Spivey said. The team formally asked the court to order the shackles removed; Pike was being held shackled by her feet and right arm, according to her lawyers.

The state pushed to proceed with the execution despite warnings from Pike’s lawyers that officials might struggle to locate suitable veins and cause her suffering in the process. The US Supreme Court allowed the execution to move forward. After the first injection, witnesses described hearing Pike breathing raggedly; she was then hospitalized after a second dose failed to kill her and was declared to be in critical condition with an unknown prognosis.

Medical experts have speculated that some or all of the pentobarbital may have missed her vein and entered surrounding tissue, that one of her problematic veins — a fact her lawyers had flagged months earlier — may have blown, or that the drug itself was faulty, or some combination of these factors.

Pike has been on Tennessee’s death row, held in isolation, for 30 years. She was 18 and her then-boyfriend Tadaryl Shipp was 17 when they killed 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, a classmate at Knoxville Job Corps, in 1995. According to prosecutors, Pike worried that Slemmer was trying to take Shipp away from her, and the two lured Slemmer into a wooded area, tortured and killed her. Shipp was convicted of first-degree murder in 1997 and received a life sentence with the possibility of parole. Pike has never denied her involvement in the killing. She was later diagnosed with bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder; because she was 18 at the time, she was sentenced to death.