After Surviving Two Doses, Christa Pike Faces Tennessee’s Move to Prevent Attorneys From Inspecting Execution Drug

Dispute over drug access

State filings say Tennessee wants to block Pike’s legal team from examining the lethal injection drug, citing concerns that the supplier could be identified. A department employee said the current supplier worried its identity could be discovered even if labels were redacted.

Luke Ihnen, one of Pike’s lawyers, said publicly identifying the supplier “has never been the goal” of the case. He said the defense wants to assess the drug’s labeling and storage, including whether it was mixed, transported or handled improperly, or was expired.

Questions about failed execution

Pike, 50, survived two doses of pentobarbital in September. Her attorneys say the drug may not have entered her bloodstream properly and instead pooled in her arms, leaving them burned and blistered.

Pike describes lasting pain

In a statement dictated to her lawyers, Pike said she woke in the hospital confused and in pain, and described continuing discomfort in her body, arms, hands and throat. She also said she still struggles to speak and experiences emotional pain.

Broader scrutiny of executions

Pike and her boyfriend tortured and stabbed 19-year-old classmate Colleen Slemmer to death in 1995. Pike was 18 at the time and became one of the youngest women sentenced to death. Slemmer’s mother traveled from Florida to witness Pike’s execution.

The failed execution has renewed questions about Tennessee’s lethal injection procedures. In May, death row inmate Tony Carruthers received a one-year reprieve after officials spent more than an hour trying unsuccessfully to establish an IV line.