NAIROBI, Kenya- Amnesty International USA has called for the abolition of the death penalty after a Tennessee woman survived two doses of a lethal injection drug during an execution attempt, according to her lawyers.
The human rights organisation condemned the attempted execution of Christa Pike, describing it as evidence of the cruelty of capital punishment.
“Tennessee’s botched attempt to execute Christa Pike, as witnessed by her attorneys, demonstrates why the death penalty truly is the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment,” Amnesty said.
“All execution methods are inhumane and unacceptable. The death penalty must be abolished, everywhere.”
Lawyers say Pike survived two doses
Pike, 50, was taken from prison by ambulance after Tennessee officials attempted to execute her on Wednesday, September 30.
Her lawyers said she remained alive after receiving two doses of pentobarbital.
They said they had not been informed of her medical condition following the attempt.
The Tennessee Department of Correction confirmed that Pike had been transferred to an outside medical facility from Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville.
The department said officials had followed the state’s approved execution protocol and that it did not permit additional procedures beyond those already carried out.
Amnesty had urged governor to intervene
Amnesty’s condemnation followed an earlier campaign urging Tennessee Governor Bill Lee to stop Pike’s execution and commute her death sentence.
In a September 15 statement, the organisation said Pike’s childhood had been marked by sexual and physical violence, abuse and neglect.
It argued that her court-appointed lawyers had presented little of that mitigating evidence during her trial.
“So much of Ms. Pike’s experience reflects widespread and systemic failures that surface in death penalty cases,” Amnesty International USA Deputy Director of Research Justin Mazzola said at the time.
Pike was 18 when she committed the murder for which she received the death sentence. Amnesty’s clemency appeal highlighted her age and the long-term psychological consequences of her childhood experiences.
Emergency court application
Following the failed attempt, Pike’s lawyers sought emergency intervention from the US Supreme Court.
They alleged that she was suffering unnecessarily and that the execution procedure violated her constitutional protection against cruel and unusual punishment.
Media witnesses reported hearing her snore about 40 minutes after the lethal drug was administered.
Earlier on Wednesday, a federal appeals court had temporarily blocked the execution. The US Supreme Court subsequently lifted that stay, allowing Tennessee to proceed.
Pike was convicted in 1996 of murdering fellow Job Corps student Colleen Slemmer in Knoxville the previous year.
Slemmer was beaten, tortured and killed in a secluded area of the University of Tennessee’s agricultural campus.
Pike would have been the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years. Her condition following the transfer to a medical facility was not immediately clear.
