A special judge has rejected most of Christa Pike’s legal challenges to Tennessee’s lethal injection protocol less than a month before her scheduled execution.
Senior Judge Mark Ward issued a report late last week largely dismissing arguments from Pike, 49, who claimed a blood condition and compromised veins could make the procedure unnecessarily painful. Pike’s attorneys had spent several days in Knox County Court arguing that medical staff would struggle to establish an IV for the execution. Ward found that Pike’s condition would not prevent medical personnel from starting an IV and noted that her previous medical records showed successful blood draws in the past, according to a report obtained by WBIR.
The court also determined that Pike had provided little evidence that her veins were too small or damaged for a standard IV. Her legal team had proposed alternatives they argued would be more humane, including using a deeper central-line IV or hanging. Ward rejected those arguments, finding that hanging would be more dangerous and carry greater risk if something went wrong.
Pike’s latest challenge also included arguments about her mental health and history of abuse. Following the release of Ward’s report, Pike’s attorney said the report found Pike suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and bipolar disorder as a result of repeated rapes and childhood sexual abuse by multiple men.
“The state clearly doesn’t care about a girl victim of childhood rapes and sexual abuse,” Pike’s attorney said. “And it will be complicit should Krista’s last moments be torturous.”
Pike’s legal team has additionally requested that female officers be involved in carrying out her execution. The court indicated it would attempt to have all female staff in the capital punishment unit while Pike is housed at Riverbend, the facility where Tennessee carries out executions. Pike is currently being held at a women’s correctional facility in Nashville.
The Tennessee Supreme Court is now expected to review Judge Ward’s report. Pike’s attorneys remain able to pursue further legal challenges as the execution date approaches, though the latest ruling does not change her scheduled execution date, which remains set for the end of September.
In the viral moment that has drawn renewed attention to her case, Pike was sentenced to death after being convicted in 1996 for the killing of Colleen Slemmer, a fellow Job Corps student in Knoxville. Pike was 18 at the time of the 1995 crime, which prosecutors said involved torture before Slemmer’s death. Pike has been on death row for nearly three decades, making her Tennessee’s only female death row inmate and one of the longest-serving women on death row nationwide.
According to the Death Penalty Information Center, 27 US states have the death penalty, though it is not actively carried out in all of them. Tennessee has carried out executions in recent years after resuming capital punishment following a hiatus.
Pike’s attorneys can continue challenging the decision as her September execution date approaches.