Lawyers for Christa Pike, the 50-year-old death row inmate who survived two lethal injections, have responded after Tennessee's Head of Prisons resigned following the botched execution.
Pike was injected with two lethal doses of pentobarbital on Wednesday but remains alive after being rushed to hospital. She was sentenced to death in 1996 for the murder of Colleen Slemmer.
Resignation announced
Earlier today, Governor Bill Lee announced that Frank Strada, commissioner of the Department of Correction, will step down this month after Pike's failed execution. In a statement, Strada said resigning was "in the best interest of Tennesseans."
Pike's attorneys welcomed Strada's departure but said it "does nothing to help Christa now." Her four-lawyer team said: "What happened to her Wednesday reflects a systemic failure that goes far beyond any one person. We hope the governor's call for a full, independent review will expose the profound problems within Tennessee's entire death penalty system."
IV line concerns
Pike's legal team believes the failed execution was caused by IV lines which led the pentobarbital to flow around her body, rather than directly into her bloodstream.
Strada took charge of the Correction Department in January 2023, having previously served as deputy director of the Arizona Department of Corrections. In late 2024, he announced Tennessee was changing its lethal injection protocol to use only pentobarbital.
Independent review underway
An independent review is currently underway to determine what happened after the state failed to execute Pike. Strada said: "I believe this review is entirely appropriate and necessary, and I look forward to doing everything I can to help determine exactly what occurred."
Governor Lee has halted all executions in the state and ordered an investigation into the unprecedented botched execution. Pike is currently in hospital, unconscious and incubated on a ventilator, as doctors work to save her life and clear the drug from her system completely.
Court papers say that during the execution, prison officials tried to gain IV access via seven different needle points. Pike had been on death row for the murder of Colleen Slemmer in January 1995. Slemmer was killed at age 19 after being lured into an isolated area on the University of Tennessee agricultural campus. Pike was convicted alongside her boyfriend in 1996, and the court heard that a pentagram was carved into Slemmer's chest and Pike kept a bit of her skull as a souvenir.
