A Tennessee judge on Thursday reopened a lawsuit by death row inmate Christa Pike challenging the state’s lethal injection protocol, more than a week after officials were unable to carry out her execution, according to local media reports.
Davidson County Chancery Court Judge I’Ashea Myles ruled that Pike had shown extraordinary and exceptional circumstances that justified revisiting the case. Pike, 50, filed the suit in January, saying her medical conditions made it highly likely that the state’s single-drug pentobarbital method would cause her severe and unnecessary suffering.
The case had been transferred to the Tennessee Supreme Court, which dismissed it over a procedural dispute without ruling on the merits of her claims, according to WZTV. The reopening does not amount to a finding that the protocol is unlawful.
Pike was the only woman on Tennessee’s death row. Her lawyers say she was given two doses of pentobarbital at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville on Sept. 30 and survived. She was left hospitalized in critical condition. The Death Penalty Information Center said she is the first person in the history of capital punishment known to have survived an execution attempt by lethal injection.
On Wednesday, Myles ordered the state to preserve all evidence tied to the attempt, including log books, medical waste and messages sent or received by officials involved. She also granted Pike’s lawyers broad access to their client, requiring prison officials to respond to visit requests within two hours.
Pike’s attorneys said in a court filing that execution staff tried at least seven times to insert an IV line, and that one needle came out bent at a right angle. They said they believe the drug entered surrounding tissue rather than her bloodstream. The state has said the protocol has consistently worked and allows no steps beyond those performed that evening.
Pike was sentenced to death for the 1995 killing of Colleen Slemmer, a fellow student at a Knoxville Job Corps program, in a crime committed when Pike was 18. Her attorneys have asked Tennessee Governor Bill Lee to intervene, and the state has not announced whether it will try again to carry out the sentence.
