US execution of Christa Pike halted an hour before it was due — MyJoyOnline
In Tennessee, US, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals halted the execution of 50-year-old Christa Pike about an hour before the scheduled carrying out of the death sentence. The judges said they needed more time to consider the arguments in her case, MyJoyOnline reports. The duration of the stay is currently unknown.
Appeals court decision
Pike was sentenced to death in 1996 for the murder of Colleen Slemmer. The appeals court's decision came after the US Supreme Court refused to delay the execution and the governor of Tennessee rejected her request for clemency.
Pike's lawyers said that the state had claimed in court for years that she had falsely reported sexual abuse during her childhood. At a recent hearing on the method of execution, however, state representatives said they did not dispute that she had experienced sexual abuse and rape.
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The defense asked the appeals court to return the motion to the district court. The lawyers believe that the federal review of the case may have been affected if the courts relied on the state's previous position that her testimony was false.
Challenge to the method of execution
The appeal that led to the execution being halted concerned the lethal injection procedure and differed from the petition to the Supreme Court. The defense argued that the method used in Tennessee could cause suffering greater than necessary to carry out the sentence, and that the state's procedures did not give Pike a proper opportunity to prove this.
In 1995, Pike, who was 18 at the time, together with her then-boyfriend beat, tortured and killed 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer at a training camp for troubled teenagers. Two other camp residents later testified that Pike had boasted about the murder before and after it. Her lawyers also stressed that at age 18, a person's brain is not yet that of an adult. According to the Tennessee Department of Correction, Pike was the youngest person on the state's death row at the time of her imprisonment.
