US woman alive and heard loudly snoring after unprecedented failure of lethal injection
Tennessee officials failed to execute Christa Gail Pike via lethal injection, leaving her alive and conscious after the administration of two doses of pentobarbital. Legal experts and the inmate's lawyers have described the incident as an unprecedented failure of the state's execution protocol.
Why it matters
This incident raises significant ethical and legal questions regarding the viability and humaneness of lethal injection protocols in the United States.
In this image from video provided by WBIR-TV, Christa Pike cries after being sentenced to death on March 30, 1996 (WBIR-TV via AP)
Tennessee officials were unable to put Christa Gail Pike to death on Wednesday for a 1995 murder despite administering two doses of a lethal drug.
A death penalty expert said it was an unprecedented failure.
Pike was alive and loudly snoring after the attempted lethal injection and taken by ambulance from the prison, her lawyers said.
“We have not been informed as to her condition,” Pike’s lawyers said in a statement.
Pike, 50, had been scheduled for execution at 10am local time on Wednesday for the killing she committed at age 18 and would have been the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years.
Also covering this story
14 other newsrooms covered this event. We read each version separately.
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