Christa Pike's Lawyer Says Tennessee Has Made 'No Promises' That Killer 'Will Not Be Subject to Future Execution' After Botched Lethal Injection

An attorney for Christa Pike said at a hearing in Nashville on Wednesday, October 7, that Tennessee hasn't ruled out another attempt to execute her after her failed lethal injection.

Attorney Luke Ihnen said, "The state has made no promises that Ms. Pike will not be subject to future execution."

Ihnen made the comments while asking Davidson County Chancellor I'Ashea Myles to order the state to preserve all evidence related to the failed execution attempt. "The evidence that we are seeking to preserve now is relevant to any future challenge that she makes," he said. Ihnen continued, "We don't know what they have, because they won't tell us."

Myles granted the request, requiring the state of Tennessee to preserve a range of items from the attempted execution. These items included medical supplies, restraints, gurneys, video and audio recordings, logbooks and electrocardiogram readouts from the execution chamber. Pike's attorneys argued that a broad order was necessary because the state hadn't said what evidence exists, and that the items could matter if the state pursues another execution.

Myles reserved her rulings on two other requests. One would remove the restraint from Pike's hand at the hospital, and the other would let Pike use a tablet while she's being treated.

The state pushed back on the idea that another execution is coming. "There is no pending execution order for Miss Pike. There is no allegation that one is coming," an assistant attorney general told the court.

Following the hearing, an attorney representing the state said the decision to set a new execution date would ultimately fall to the Tennessee Supreme Court. State attorneys also noted that the Tennessee Department of Correction had moved evidence from the execution chamber to a preservation room and taken photographs of the chamber, and that some evidence may be held at the hospital rather than by the department.

During the hearing, Pike's attorney referred to concerns her legal team had expressed months earlier regarding difficulties drawing blood from her, specifically that prison medical personnel commonly used a butterfly needle because her veins were difficult to access. "All of this was foreseeable and foreseen," one of Pike's attorneys stated after the hearing.

Ihnen argued that Pike suffered cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment. He further explained that Pike's legal team doesn't believe the state can be trusted to follow through on its assurances. "We don't have a lot of faith in ... when the attorney general's office say that they're going to do something that they're going to do," Ihnen said.

Pike, 50, is the first known person to survive a lethal injection after receiving two doses of pentobarbital at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution on Wednesday, September 30. Since then, she has been in the hospital.

On Tuesday, October 6, her lawyers said Pike was "conscious, speaking, and continues to receive critical medical care." However, they also noted that although Pike had suffered severe damage to both of her arms, she remained "handcuffed and shackled to the bed."

Gov. Bill Lee has announced that Tennessee Department of Correction Commissioner Frank Strada will leave his position later this month. Pike was sentenced to death in 1996 for the 1995 murder of Colleen Slemmer, another student at the Knoxville Job Corps. Pike is the only female inmate currently on Tennessee's death row, and her attorneys have asked Lee to commute her sentence.