Christa Pike survives first execution attempt in Tennessee — Jerusalem Post
In the US state of Tennessee, Christa Pike, who was sentenced to death, survived the first attempt to carry out her sentence, the state Department of Correction reported. Pike could become the first woman to be executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years. The Jerusalem Post reported this.
Supreme Court decision
On Wednesday, the US Supreme Court allowed the state to execute Pike by lethal injection. The court lifted a temporary stay of execution that a three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit had issued about an hour before the scheduled execution.
By a 2-1 vote, the panel granted a brief delay to consider the defense's argument that evidence of sexual abuse Pike suffered in childhood had allegedly not been sufficiently considered during sentencing. After the Supreme Court's decision, the Tennessee Department of Correction told Reuters that it planned to proceed with the execution that same day.
If state authorities do not manage to carry out the execution before midnight, when the execution warrant expires, Tennessee will have to obtain a new warrant from the state Supreme Court, Death Penalty Information Center Executive Director Robin Maher said.
More current news is available on the UA.News Telegram channel Telegram.
The case and clemency petition
Pike, 50, was sentenced to death for the murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in January 1995. Pike was 18 at the time. According to information cited in the report, she, her 17-year-old boyfriend Tadaryl Shipp, and a third companion lured Slemmer, their classmate from the Job Corps vocational center in Knoxville, to a wooded area, where they tortured and killed her.
Pike and Shipp were found guilty of first-degree murder. Shipp received life imprisonment with the possibility of parole. The third co-defendant, Shadolla Peterson, who acted as a lookout, testified for the prosecution and received probation.
Tennessee Governor Bill Lee on Monday rejected Pike's clemency petition. Her lawyers asked for the death penalty to be commuted to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, citing the abuse she experienced in childhood as well as diagnoses of bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, since 1976, 18 women have been executed in the United States out of 1,683 people whose death sentences were carried out.
