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Christa Pike remains critically ill in hospital after surviving two execution attempts on Wednesday, and doctors have not yet determined her prognosis, her lawyer said on Sunday.
Stephen Ferrell told CNN that medical staff were still trying to clear two doses of pentobarbital from Pike’s body. She is being treated at a hospital in Nashville, Tennessee, according to Reuters.
Lawyer says Pike remains on a ventilator
“She’s still in the hospital, on a ventilator, critically ill. We really don’t know the prognosis yet, and may not know for several days,” Ferrell said.
He said he did not believe Pike had regained consciousness. Ferrell has not visited her and said he was receiving updates through her medical power of attorney rather than speaking directly with doctors.
Authorities have not said whether they will attempt to execute Pike again or explained what went wrong. Tennessee Governor Bill Lee suspended executions in the state for the rest of the year, while the state’s prisons chief said on Saturday that he would resign.
Ferrell said Pike might not fully recover and that questions could arise about her competence. He said the Tennessee attorney general’s office had not indicated what it planned to do.
Lawyer calls for sentence to be commuted
Ferrell called on Lee to commute Pike’s death sentence to life in prison, saying she had endured a “torturous attempt at executing her” and had spent more than 30 years in prison, mostly in solitary confinement. He said it might never be known what she experienced during the execution process.
Pike was 18 when she and her then-boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, beat, tortured and killed 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in 1995. Pike was sentenced to death the following year after the killing in Knoxville, Tennessee.
Slemmer’s mother, May Martinez, travelled to Nashville for the execution, which went ahead despite last-minute legal challenges. Martinez, who supported Pike’s death sentence, told local outlet WJXX she “broke down in tears” after learning the execution had not been successful and said the state owed her an apology.
Tennessee’s Department of Correction defended its lethal-injection procedures, saying its protocol did not allow for additional procedures beyond those carried out. Pike’s lawyers had previously cited her medical history, including thrombocytosis, a blood-clotting condition, and small veins, as reasons she could face unnecessary pain and suffering during a lethal injection.
