The mother of murder victim Colleen Slemmer has spoken out after Christa Pike, the Tennessee death row inmate who killed her daughter in 1995, survived a failed execution and is now conscious and able to speak.
Pike, now 50, was 18 when she murdered 19-year-old Slemmer in January 1995 and was sentenced to death. On September 30, executioners administered two doses of pentobarbital in an attempt to end her life, but the procedure left her unconscious and reliant on a ventilator.
Recovery described as medically unprecedented
Six days after the failed execution, Pike's lawyers provided an update on her health, reporting that her arms were left burned and blistered. In a statement, they said: "Against all odds, Christa Pike is conscious, speaking, and continues to receive critical medical care. Despite the severe damage she endured to her arms, she is still handcuffed and shackled to the bed. Her recovery is medically unprecedented."
May Martinez, Slemmer's mother, told NBC affiliate WBIR that she had a premonition Pike would survive. She also expressed doubt that Tennessee would make another attempt to execute her daughter's killer. When asked what she thought should happen next, Martinez responded: "It doesn't matter what I think. They're going to do what they're going to do."
Expert views on legal and medical outlook
Dr. Joel Zivot, a professor of anaesthesiology and surgery in Atlanta who served as an expert consultant for Pike's legal team, said the development "bodes well for a good recovery." However, he added that it could be weeks or months before anyone knows exactly what her recovery might look like, and whether her competency could be restored to a level that might enable the state to try again to execute her. He confirmed: "She's still in the ICU."
Deborah Denno, a Fordham Law professor who has studied execution methods for 36 years, said Pike has strong arguments that trying again would be cruel and unusual and would violate the prohibition on double jeopardy. "She has satisfied this very, very high standard for cruel and unusual punishment," Denno said. "She also has a very good double-jeopardy argument. They carried out every aspect of the execution. She didn't die, but every process they intended, they did it."
Seattle University Law Professor Michael Russo, who handled capital cases as a public defender in Los Angeles, described the failed execution as horrible but doubted whether the Supreme Court would prevent the state from trying again on double-jeopardy grounds. "There's nobody else in the history of the death penalty in this country who has gone through what she's been through," Russo said. But, he added, "I think what this Supreme Court would say is, her sentence was to die - to be executed - not to suffer an attempt at execution."
State review and calls for commutation
Pike's legal team said in their Tuesday statement that they continue to urge outgoing Tennessee Governor Bill Lee to commute Pike's sentence to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Governor Lee suspended all further executions following Pike's hospitalisation and ordered a "comprehensive, third-party review to determine exactly what occurred."
U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn, the state's Republican candidate to succeed him, urged the state to examine alternative execution methods to ensure capital punishment can continue to be carried out.
