Tennessee corrections commissioner resigns after failed execution

Tennessee Department of Correction Commissioner Frank Strada will resign this month after the failed execution of Christa Pike, Governor Bill Lee announced on Saturday. Lee said Strada would step down while an independent review examines why Pike’s execution failed on Wednesday. Strada said leaving office was in the state’s best interests as the review takes place.

Pike was placed on a ventilator and remained unconscious in hospital, her attorneys said in a court filing. They said medical staff were working to save her life and, as of late Thursday, were attempting to clear the two doses of pentobarbital used by Tennessee in executions. The episode has prompted demands for answers from both sides of the debate over capital punishment.

Lee has ordered the independent review. Pike’s lawyers said they believed the intravenous lines had been incorrectly placed or that the veins had failed, causing pentobarbital to enter her body rather than her bloodstream. The lawyers wrote that no member of the execution team appeared to have recognised the problem during the procedure.

Their account was presented in a court filing and was not accompanied in the supplied material by a response from the state. Pike was 18 when she and her boyfriend tortured and killed classmate Colleen Slemmer during what the source describes as a jealous rage. She later became one of the youngest women sent to death row.

The supplied report does not state whether the state has set a new execution date or describe further steps beyond the review.