Christa Pike in critical condition after failed execution attempts: Lawyer

Tennessee inmate Christa Pike was in critical condition and receiving “lifesaving medical care” on Thursday, a day after surviving two failed lethal injection attempts by state executioners, according to her lawyers.

Attorney Randy Spivey, who was present at the Wednesday execution attempt, said during a press conference that state executioners “attempted to establish an IV line for an hour” and used seven needles in her left arm alone.

“The state of Tennessee has shown us again that they are not capable of carrying out an execution consistent with basic human dignity,” Spivey said. “Last night was not just inefficient. It was cruel and it was torturous.

“It was also predictable,” he continued, referencing Pike’s lifelong blood disorder that complicated the process of successfully inserting needles into her veins.

“Christa’s legal team told the state of Tennessee and the courts that her medical conditions would cause her to suffer an agonizing death,” the attorney added. “The state and the court dismissed Christa’s concerns.”

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee (R) ordered that Pike’s execution be delayed until at least next year following the botched attempt to allow for an independent investigation to take place.

This was Tennessee’s second failed execution this year. In May, state executioners failed to locate a vein for a lethal injection for inmate Tony Carruthers. Lee granted a one-year reprieve in the case.

Spivey said the governor’s call for an independent review “does not go far enough” and demanded that Lee immediately commute Pike’s death sentence.

“After having endured solitary confinement for more than 20 years and a full attempt to kill her by lethal injection, Christa has endured punishment greater than any other person in the history of the American death penalty,” the lawyer said. “The governor must commute Christa’s sentence now.”

An eleventh-hour stay order from a federal appeals court, which was later lifted by the U.S. Supreme Court, delayed Pike’s scheduled execution time. The high court’s three liberal justices dissented in the decision.

The inmate was convicted of first-degree murder in 1996 after she admitted to killing her 19-year-old classmate Colleen Slemmer in Knoxville, Tenn., with Pike’s then-boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp.

Shipp, who was not eligible for the death penalty since he was 17 at the time of the crime, is serving out a life sentence in prison. His request for parole was denied last year.

May Martinez, the mother of Slemmer, traveled to Nashville to watch the execution. She told The Associated Press she “didn’t get justice” for her daughter after the state’s botched attempt.

“I watched the whole thing. She was awake. She was laughing. She was moving her head, moving her feet. She was trying to sit up,” Martinez said. “Didn’t work the first time they gave her a shot. It didn’t work the second time.”