Tennessee Orders Outside Review After Inmate Survives Two Lethal Injection Doses
Tennessee's attempt to carry out the Christa Pike execution on 30 September ended without her death, after officials gave two doses of pentobarbital. Governor Bill Lee has since ordered an outside review and cancelled the state's one remaining execution for this year. Pike, 50, was alive when taken by ambulance to a hospital, her lawyers said, and a leading death penalty expert called the outcome unprecedented.
How the Christa Pike execution attempt unfolded
Pike was scheduled to die at 10 a.m. at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville. About an hour before that, the 6th US Circuit Court of Appeals voted 2-1 for a stay, saying it needed time to consider whether her allegations of childhood sexual abuse were fully weighed at sentencing.
Hours later the US Supreme Court...