Tennessee is fighting Christa Pike’s bid to leave the prison infirmary more than five weeks after her botched execution.
The state filed a blistering response Wednesday urging a federal judge to reject the 50-year-old death row inmate’s emergency motion for transfer out of the medical unit at Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center in Nashville. Pike, who survived two lethal injections on Sept. 30, returned from a private hospital on Oct. 9 and remains under round-the-clock care.
State attorneys came out swinging in their court filing. “[Pike] thinks she knows better than her treating providers and [Tennessee Department of Corrections] officials about how to treat her medical needs while keeping her safe and secure,” they claimed.
Dr. Eduardo Ortiz, chief medical officer for the Tennessee Department of Correction, submitted a sworn declaration stating Pike’s condition requires constant access to medical personnel and equipment. He said she is assessed daily but acknowledged he cannot provide an exact date for her discharge from the unit.
Pike’s lawyers argue the state is violating a 2024 settlement agreement. They say she is isolated from other prisoners and deprived of group meals, recreation, work and social interaction.
Tennessee disputes that characterization entirely. “Pike is not isolated or singled out for poor treatment. On the contrary, she has received visits from counsel and her spiritual advisor, and she is subject to the same visitation policies and procedures as any other inmate in the infirmary,” the state’s filing said.
That spiritual adviser has been identified as the Rev. Mikey Noechel, a Buddhist teacher at East Nashville’s Wild Heart Meditation Center. Noechel said before the execution attempt that he planned to accompany Pike into the death chamber.
“We’ll be walking in with this practice of loving kindness, blessing the whole room with loving kindness,” he told WPLN in September.
The procedure ended in disaster instead. Prison officials administered two doses of the lethal drug pentobarbital but failed to kill her.
Pike’s lawyers have since reported burns, nerve damage, cognitive difficulties and severe psychological trauma from the failed execution.
The state says Pike wants to be housed in Unit 3A, an assisted-living area where inmates with mobility difficulties and other medical needs can receive assistance while interacting with other prisoners. Officials argue the unit is effectively a nursing home, not a hospital, and is incapable of providing the intensive treatment Pike currently requires.
Pike was sentenced to die for the brutal 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer. She has remained on death row for nearly three decades before the Sept. 30 execution attempt.
The extraordinary dispute over her medical housing comes as Tennessee faces intense scrutiny over its failed execution procedure. Gov. Bill Lee halted further executions through the end of the year pending a review.
Pike’s death sentence still stands, with no new execution date yet announced.