[Yahoo] Pike was hospitalized after surviving two doses of lethal injection drugs, prompting Tennessee to halt executions and investigate what went wrong.
Tennessee's only female death row inmate has been taken to the hospital after surviving two doses of lethal injection drugs, her lawyers said.
Christa Pike, 50, was alive and snoring loudly after being given two doses of pentobarbital, her attorneys said.
Pike had been scheduled for execution 10 a.m. Wednesday for a killing she committed in 1995, at the age of 18. She would have been the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years.
An appeals court stopped the lethal injection just an hour before it was to start, a stay that was subsequently overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Media witnesses said officials raised the curtains to the execution chamber at 7:27 p.m., showing Pike strapped to a gurney. "I'm going to leave this world the way I spent most of my life, and that is in love," she said in her "last" words.
However, Pike remained conscious after the initial dose and at one point raised her head and asked prison officials if her arm was supposed to feel that way.
By 8:26 p.m., witnesses reported that the second dose of pentobarbital had been administered.
Pike continued to be heard snoring behind the closed curtain until the microphone was cut off at 8:53 p.m. At that time, an announcement was made to escort media witnesses out of the area.
Pike's legal team said in a statement to the Tennessean newspaper, "Tonight the State of Tennessee once again failed to carry out a lawful execution.
"We take no pleasure in being right, but the concerns raised by Ms Pike proved to be true: difficult vein access, blown veins, degraded pentobarbital, no emergency medical care available when things inevitably go wrong, all under a protocol that remains veiled in secrecy."
Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee said that he had ordered "a comprehensive, third-party review to determine exactly what occurred" and that the remaining scheduled execution will not take place this year.
"Carrying out a lawfully imposed sentence is among the state's most serious responsibilities, and the people of Tennessee expect it to be done in a manner that is not only legal and constitutional, but is effective," he said.
Rest at link
# id) ?>
|
