Christa Pike: What to know about the case of Tennessee death row inmate
www.nbcnews.com
Christa Pike, 50, was 18 when she murdered classmate Colleen Slemmer. She was due to be the first woman the state had executed in more than 200 years.

The lone woman on Tennessee’s death row was still alive after she was administered two lethal injections, her lawyer said in a motion seeking to halt her execution Wednesday night, a stunning development after the Supreme Court had stepped in to allow the state to put her to death.

At 8:26 p.m. local time, witnesses said “executioners had injected both syringes of lethal injection chemicals” and Christa Pike was “still alive and snoring,” her lawyers said in a federal court filing.

They said Pike “has not lost consciousness and still has a heartbeat” and that curtains to the death chamber “have gone down twice.”

  • im_fine_sandy@nord.pubEnglish
    0·
    9 days ago

    It’s an absurdity, but if you’re going to execute people as humanely as possibly then yeah - if they’re still alive after the attempt you have to provide assistance. What’s the alternative?

    • Janx@piefed.socialEnglish
      0·
      9 days ago

      I grew up on a farm and my dad would have to slaughter the chickens we raised to feed the family. Despite trying to make their end as quick and painless as possible, the “chicken running around with its head cut off” was an actual thing sometimes. There’s even a famous extremely rare occurrence of a chicken surviving its own beheading: Mike the Headless Chicken. Of course that chicken was monetized because Capitalism, but the point remains: if you have to take a life for whatever reason, there’s no going back.

      Trying to execute people as humanely as possible is a noble intention, but you need to have a backup plan in case the drugs fail. Just like Mike, trying to rescue her and keep her technically alive after the botched execution attempt is cruelty, plain and simple. It’s also preventable, and completely unnecessary…

      • im_fine_sandy@nord.pubEnglish
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        9 days ago

        I think the backup plan was more drugs, which they administered.

        I’m not quite sure what backup plan you might be thinking of? Beheading? Strangulation? Shooting?

        The mind boggles.

        Whatever the plan is, there has to be a point at which the executioners acknowledge that the plan has failed, and after that point the prisoner needs to be made as comfortable as possible.

        A headless chicken is not analogous to a person who’s had an intramuscular injection of whatever cocktail.

      • im_fine_sandy@nord.pubEnglish
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        9 days ago

        I agree wholeheartedly that executing people is barbaric.

        My question is, if you’re going to do it, then what do you do if it doesn’t work,?

        • scibra122@piefed.socialEnglish
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          9 days ago

          What value does the question really have though? It’s not that hard to not murder people, there shouldn’t need to be a plan B

          • im_fine_sandy@nord.pubEnglish
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            9 days ago

            God this is tedious.

            My comment is a response to the parent comment:

            So killing her doesn’t work, they bring an ambulance, take her to the hospital, let her go back to prison for a year and wait for them to try again?

            What is the alternative, once the injections have not worked ?

            You’re correct, of course: don’t do the injections or any other method of execution in the first place. However, supposing you’ve already botched the injections what is the appropriate course of action?