I've seen nearly 500 executions - but never one like Christa Pike's

Reporter Michael Graczyk has covered nearly 500 executions carried out in Texas, continuing even after his 2018 retirement from The Associated Press.

He remembers two instances where needles popped out before reinsertion for successful execution - but never one in which an inmate survived.

That's what happened this week in Tennessee, when 50-year-old inmate Christa Pike remained breathing and audibly snoring after two separate doses of pentobarbital, the barbiturate used in the state's lethal injection protocol.

Graczyk, 76, says he wasn't entirely surprised to hear of the anomaly - and had actually thought about the possibility during his decades-long career as a Texas journalist.

"It seems to me it was just a matter of time," he told BBC News.

Tennessee's execution protocol calls for a secondary set of pentobarbital-filled syringes in case the person being put to death does not die after the first set, according to AP, but does not spell out what happens if the subject is alive after the second set.

Governor Bill Lee halted executions in the state after Wednesday night's failure, ordering an independent review into procedures. Botched executions have come under scrutiny over the past decade, since a shortage of the drugs used led some states to change the formula, or procure drugs from more questionable sources. Some states even brought back death by firing squad as an alternative.

Pike is now in hospital where she is receiving "life-saving care", according to her lawyer.

It's not uncommon for lethal injections - the most frequently used form of capital punishment in the 27 US states where the penalty is legal - to be "botched". The Death Penalty Information Center, a think-tank that does not take a stance on the death penalty, describes a botched execution as one with "unanticipated problems or delays that caused, at least arguably, unnecessary agony for the prisoner or that reflect gross incompetence of the executioner". The organisation has compiled a list of 64 botched executions since 1982, 51 of them lethal injections. In at least seven of those cases, the executions were halted because the IV line could not be set.

But Graczyk has never seen an execution fail after the injection was delivered.

"That has never happened here," Graczyk said of the Lone Star State.

Graczyk, who covered a wide range of topics for the AP during his 46 years with the news service, considers his prolific attendance at executions to be an important part of the job.

"There is no [greater] authority, power, or whatever you want to call it, that state or federal government has over us than the power to take our life," he said.

There have been 1,683 executions in the US since 1976, according to the Death Penalty Information Centre, which is when the US Supreme Court re-instated the death penalty. Texas has carried out by far the most of any state, with 602 executions. In 1982, it became the first state to use lethal injections to execute people.

"I always thought it was important for someone who has no stake in the outcome of a case to be there and to see the law being carried out and to make certain that it is done properly," Graczyk said.

"That someone is there to see it and tell others: Here's what I saw. Here's what happened."

Although he is technically retired, he still works freelance for AP covering executions in his home state.

He feels a particular responsibility to remember victims in his coverage and it's especially disheartening when he writes a story about an execution that doesn't make big news.

"I feel bad for the victims in the case," he said. "They are the forgotten folks. They always have been."

"Today, all the emphasis is on the inmate in Tennessee," he said. "No tears are being shed, other than the victim's immediate family, for the victim … and I understand that's the business we're in, but it doesn't mean it's right."

Pike's victim was Colleen Slemmer, a 19-year-old originally from Florida who loved to roller skate, smile and help others, according to descriptions given by her friends and family. Slemmer was tortured and killed by Pike, then 18, and her then-boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, after they met her at a job training camp.

Slemmer's mother, May Martinez, was present in Tennessee on Wednesday for the execution attempt, telling NBC News afterwards that it "was a mess".

Texas, where Graczyk lives and works, does not allow observers in the execution chamber when the IV is being inserted, he said.

"So when we get into the chamber, the inmate's already hooked up."

In a lethal injection execution, the IV would typically be inserted in the crook of the person's arm, Graczyk said. But if that didn't work, sometimes it would go into the top of their hand, their leg, neck or other sites.

During successful executions, Graczyk said inmates become "visibly unconscious after just a few seconds". They are usually pronounced dead 20 to 40 minutes after the fatal dose is given, he said.

He still remembers the death of Jonathan Nobles, who was executed by lethal injection in Texas in 1998. He'd been handed the sentence after his conviction for the brutal 1986 stabbing murders of two Austin women, Kelley Fraquhar and Mitzi Johnson-Nalley.

Nobles sang "Silent Night" as his last words.

"He gets to 'Round yon virgin' and he stops talking," Graczyk told BBC News. "That's how long it took for the drug to kick in so he wasn't conscious anymore."

That scene has stuck with Graczyk for nearly 30 years.

"To this day, when I'm in church on Christmas, and the choir is singing Silent Night, and all the congregation is joining in Silent Night and they're all, you know, in the spirit of the season and the joy of the season, and I'm thinking of this execution, I'm sure I'm the only one in that congregation that is having that kind of recollection."

When people hear about his career covering executions, he said, they are usually curious.

"Most people don't get to watch someone die," he said.

But when people ask him about what he has witnessed, he tells them "it's not the only thing I did or do or have done".

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