Christa Pike, who was sentenced to death for murder in Tennessee, has regained consciousness and is speaking after authorities' attempt to execute her failed, her lawyers said on Tuesday.
“Against all expectations, Christa Pike has regained consciousness, is speaking and continues to receive critical medical treatment,” they said.
Her execution had been scheduled for last week, according to state authorities. However, she survived after receiving two intravenous doses of a lethal solution containing pentobarbital, in accordance with the execution protocol.
Witnesses said Pike continued to breathe with great difficulty for a prolonged period. One of her lawyers said she was heard speaking, singing and crying after the first dose was administered.
She was subsequently transferred to a hospital outside the prison.
Questions over how she survived
It remains unclear how or why Pike survived.
It has not been established whether the outcome resulted from incorrectly placed IV lines or damaged veins. It is also unclear whether authorities will attempt to execute her again if she makes a full recovery.
Her lawyers said that despite extensive injuries to her arms, she remains hospitalised while shackled to the bed by her hands and feet.
They described her recovery as “medically unprecedented”, adding that her prognosis remains “unclear” and that they expect “a long recovery”.
According to her lawyers, Pike is “the only person known to have survived a complete execution procedure in the United States”.
Her legal team has called for her not to face another execution and for her sentence to be commuted to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.
Even before she was taken to the execution chamber, her defence team had sought commutation of the sentence, citing her history of sexual abuse as a child, diagnosed mental illness and good behaviour after more than three decades in prison.
The request was rejected by the courts.
Pike was sentenced to death in 1996 for the murder of a 19-year-old woman when Pike herself was 18.
The victim, Colleen Slemmer, was tortured and killed at a remote location near the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.
Texas inmate also due for execution
Another death row inmate, 46-year-old Jamal Howard, was due to be executed yesterday in Huntsville, Texas.
His execution was expected to be the 30th in the United States this year.
Howard was sentenced to death for the murder of 42-year-old Vicki Lee Swarthout, who worked at a convenience store.
Having exhausted his legal appeals, his defence team asked Texas Governor Greg Abbott for a 30-day reprieve following what they described as the “horrific failure” of Pike's execution a week earlier.
First US military execution since 1961
President Donald Trump is an outspoken supporter of capital punishment.
On Monday, he gave the go-ahead for the execution by military firing squad of the perpetrator of the 2009 attack at Fort Hood in Texas, in which 13 people were killed.
It would be the first execution carried out by the US military since 1961.
The US Department of Justice also announced measures in April aimed at making it easier to pursue the death penalty in federal cases.
Source: CNA
