saving care' after botched execution
Christa Pike is in critical condition after a botched execution attempt in Tennessee, marking the second such incident in the state this year. Her lawyers are calling for a commutation of her sentence, citing the failure of lethal injection protocols.
Why it matters
The case has reignited the national debate regarding the ethics and efficacy of capital punishment and the use of lethal injection in the United States.
Christa Pike is critically ill and receiving "life-saving medical care" in a Nashville hospital hours after she survived two attempts to execute her with lethal injections, her lawyers said, renewing scrutiny of capital punishment in the US.
Pike, 50, was sentenced to death in the 1990s after being convicted of a murder she carried out as a teenager.
Her botched execution on Wednesday at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution , the second this year in Tennessee, highlights the difficulties US states face in carrying out lethal injections and finding suitable alternative methods of capital punishment.
"Christa is alive right now," Randall Spivey, one of Pike's lawyers who was a witness at the execution attempt, told reporters on Thursday afternoon.
"We don't have a sense of her prognosis or much update on her health at the moment, but we do know that she is alive right now."
Also covering this story
21 other newsrooms covered this event. We read each version separately.
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‘It was a mess’: Tennessee fails to execute woman after 2 lethal injections - NBC News
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