Judge will order officials to save evidenceafter Christa Pike’s failed execution
By EMILY COCHRANE and BILLY WITZ
One week after the Tennessee death row inmate Christa Pike survived two doses of a drug meant to kill her, a state judge said Wednesday that she would order officials to preserve evidence including syringes, drugs and IV lines related to the failed execution. The judge also emphasized that Pike’s lawyers should have normal access to her, even as she remains hospitalized.
Judge I’Ashea Myles ruled on the access issue after lawyers for the death row inmate complained that state corrections officials had “put up roadblocks” to them and medical personnel.
In the hearing, the judge also ordered that officials retain witness accounts, video footage and other materials. “You will take special care not to lose, misplace, accidentally delete any information that may be pertinent,” she told John W. Ayers, the assistant attorney general.
Pike was conscious and speaking after initially being on a ventilator following the botched execution. Luke Ihnen, a lawyer for Pike, told the judge that her lawyers have been able to see her but said they had been forced to wait.
en also said corrections personnel had refused to remove handcuffs on one of Pike’s hands, despite requests by medical staff. The judge asked medical personnel to file a request to have Pike’s hand uncuffed.
Ayers said the prison had collected materials from the execution chamber — observation logs, medical waste and products, and EKG readouts among them — on the night of Sept. 30, but that some evidence may not be in the correction department’s possession. Under questioning from the judge, he also said he could not say whether the state will try to execute Pike again.
Pike’s lawyers have also asked Gov. Bill Lee, a Republican in the final months of his term, to consider allowing her to spend the rest of her life in prison, arguing that she has already egregiously suffered at the hands of the state. Lee has paused all executions and ordered an independent investigation of the execution attempt.
Pike was sentenced to death in the 1995 killing of Colleen Slemmer, who had been lured into the woods by Pike and two other classmates, and tortured and killed. Pike’s boyfriend at the time was also convicted in connection with the killing but was spared the death penalty because he was 17. Pike was 18.
May Martinez, the mother of Slemmer, has said she feels her family has been denied justice in her daughter’s killing and is in favor of Pike’s execution.
Here’s what we’re covering:
— The victim: Pike has been on death row for three decades for her role in the torture and murder of Slemmer, whose mother remembers her as a vibrant and generous presence who volunteered at the Special Olympics, loved bowling and was interested in computers.
— Pike’s condition: Pike, who is believed to be the first person to have survived doses of a lethal injection drug, had regained consciousness, but her prognosis remained unclear. “Christa is a survivor and will take recovery one day at a time,” the lawyers said.
— Texas execution: A Texas man is scheduled to be put to death later Wednesday for the killing of a convenience store clerk in 2000, but his lawyers have asked Gov. Greg Abbott to delay the execution by 30 days while they wait for more information on the drug that will be used.
— Capital punishments: The failed execution put renewed attention on the methods by which capital punishment can be carried out. As pressure on drug companies and legal challenges have made purchasing drugs for lethal injections more difficult, some states have authorized additional methods. Some, like nitrogen hypoxia, are new, while others, such as the firing squad and electric chair, hark back to earlier eras.
