Follow-Up: New Court Filing in Pike Execution Case Describes Repeated Failed IV Attempts, Fears of Blown Veins
A court filing submitted on Thursday, October 22, disclosed further details of Tennessee's failed execution on September 30. Randy Spivey, attorney for death row inmate Christa Pike, wrote in the filing that before administering pentobarbital, the IV team made repeated attempts to establish access in both of Pike's arms, using about 10 needles, and at one point feared some of her veins had blown; even in the line finally established, staff had great difficulty pushing saline through it.
Pike did not die after receiving two doses of pentobarbital on September 30; she was taken to a hospital, spent days on a ventilator — her attorney at one point believed she would not survive — and later regained consciousness, was discharged and returned to prison. State protocol allows a second dose if the first is not lethal, but makes no express provision for an inmate who survives the second dose.
The failed execution is under the independent review the governor previously ordered, and the new filing is expected to become important material for that review and for subsequent litigation. Pike, now 50, was sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of her classmate Colleen Slemmer.
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：位于纳什维尔的田纳西州议会大厦。摄影：w_lemay，CC BY-SA 2.0（Wikimedia Commons）。Photo: The Tennessee State Capitol in Nashville. Photo by w_lemay, CC BY-SA 2.0 (Wikimedia Commons).
