Tennessee's Botched Execution of Christa Pike Fails After Two Doses of Pentobarbital

Tennessee's attempt to execute 50-year-old Christa Pike on Wednesday night failed after officials administered two doses of pentobarbital at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution, leaving her still awake and snoring past 9pm. Pike, convicted of the 1995 torture-murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer committed when she was 18, would have been the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years. Governor Bill Lee denied her clemency request hours before the execution, and the US Supreme Court overturned a 2-1 Sixth Circuit stay granted to examine whether her childhood sexual abuse allegations were fully considered at sentencing, with Justices Sotomayor, Kagan and Jackson dissenting. Pike's lawyers filed an emergency motion claiming she survived both syringes; the Death Penalty Information Center called it the worst botched execution in the modern era, and Lee ordered a third-party review while halting the state's remaining execution this year.