Christa Pike, 50, has lost her bid to halt her September 30 execution after Tennessee’s highest court rejected her legal team’s emergency petition.
The Tennessee Supreme Court denied the stay request on Wednesday, September 23, clearing the path for Pike to become the first woman executed in the state in more than two centuries. Her lawyers had argued that her medical condition, thrombocytosis, would make lethal injection unnecessarily painful and therefore violate Eighth Amendment protections against cruel and unusual punishment. Judges ruled that the defense had not established that the blood disorder would complicate the procedure to a constitutionally impermissible degree.
Pike’s attorneys quickly vowed to keep fighting on multiple fronts. “We are deeply disappointed in the Tennessee Supreme Court’s decision, but we will press forward, seeking relief from the U.S. Supreme Court while also continuing our request that Governor Lee grant Christa clemency,” Stephen Ferrell of the Federal Defender Services of Eastern Tennessee and Kelly Gleason of the Tennessee Office of the Post-Conviction Defender said in a joint statement. They emphasized that Pike was only 18 when she committed the crime and had survived a childhood marked by sexual abuse and undiagnosed serious mental illness. “She was sentenced before we understood what we know today about adolescent brain development and the profound effects of childhood trauma,” they added.
The legal team also highlighted what they described as Pike’s transformation during nearly three decades on death row. “Today, 30 years later, Christa is a stable, deeply remorseful woman who understands the terrible harm caused by her actions,” part of their statement read.
Pike herself addressed her remorse in the documentary “Dead Woman Walking: Pike Vs Tennessee.” “I’ve always felt bad for her mother, that I took someone’s child, someone’s sister, someone’s friend away,” she said during the interview. “I feel remarkably remorseful for what I did.”
Pike was convicted of murdering 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in Knoxville in 1995, a crime that has kept her on death row for the better part of thirty years. Her boyfriend at the time, Tadaryl Shipp, was also convicted in the killing, but because he was 17, he was ineligible for capital punishment and received a life sentence with parole eligibility instead.
Beyond the constitutional challenge to lethal injection, Pike’s team has pressed additional requests focused on her specific circumstances as a female inmate with a documented history of sexual abuse by men. They asked that only female corrections staff be present in the death chamber, citing Pike’s terror at the prospect of being restrained on the gurney by male officers. The state has agreed to transport her to Riverbend Maximum Security Institution via female corrections officers no earlier than 24 hours before the execution and to make efforts to assign only female staff to observe her, though officials stopped short of guaranteeing an all-female presence.
Pike’s execution remains scheduled for September 30 at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution.