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.”
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.