Tennessee prison chief resigns after failed execution leaves inmate critical

Tennessee’s prisons commissioner, Frank Strada, will resign this month after a failed execution left convicted murderer Christa Pike critically ill, Governor Bill Lee said on Saturday. Pike, 50, survived two injections of pentobarbital during the execution at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville on Wednesday. Media witnesses reported hearing her snore for about an hour after the drugs were administered before they were taken from the viewing area.

Pike was taken to hospital and was unconscious and on a ventilator, according to her lawyers. A court filing said doctors were working to clear the drug from her system and described both arms as swollen, burned and blistered when she arrived. Lee said he thanked Strada for putting the interests of Tennesseans first during what he called a difficult moment.

Strada said he continued to believe the Department of Correction had acted according to established protocol. The governor, who had previously denied Pike clemency, halted further executions in Tennessee for the remainder of the year. He ordered a comprehensive review by an outside party.

Pike’s lawyers had challenged the execution’s intravenous procedure before it took place. They said her small veins and a blood condition created risks, and lawyer Randy Spivey said seven needles had been used in her left arm. Lawyers also warned that pentobarbital could damage skin, tissue and veins if it did not enter the bloodstream correctly.

The Death Penalty Information Center said Pike was the first inmate known to survive after receiving lethal doses of execution drugs. She was convicted over the 1995 killing of Colleen Slemmer, who was 19 when Pike and her boyfriend beat and killed her at a job training camp. Pike’s case had also drawn attention because she was 18 at the time of the crime and because the execution would have been Tennessee’s first of a woman in more than 200 years.