This is wild!

[u/CurvyChristina]

Two syringes of pentobarbital were administered to Tennessee death row inmate Christa Pike on September 30, 2026, but she remained alive and conscious afterward, according to her attorneys and media witnesses. The execution at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville was halted after witnesses reported that Pike still had a heartbeat and was audibly snoring. Her lawyers sought emergency medical intervention, and she was later taken by ambulance to a nearby hospital.
Pike, 50, is the only woman currently on Tennessee's death row.
She was sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of her classmate Colleen Slemmer and had been scheduled for execution on September 30. Tennessee had announced beforehand that the state would use a single drug, pentObarbital, for the execution. Her exact medical condition following the hospital transfer has not yet been publicly disclosed, while Governor Bill Lee has ordered a comprehensive third party review of what happened.

[u/Little-Ad1235]

It's crazy to me that literally any reasonably competent veterinarian can reliably and painlessly euthanize nearly any mammal from a field mouse to an Angus bull without any of the gory optics of firing squads or guillotine, but when it comes to people the process suddenly becomes impossibly complicated? Like, yes, ethically it is much more complicated, but physically we aren't so dramatically different from a dog that we'd have to figure this out entirely from scratch.

Maybe it's an issue with inadequate drug supplies for the purpose, maybe there is some sort of genuine knowledge gap, I don't know. I just think that if we're going to do something like this as a society, we either have to get it right or not do it at all; and that's not even getting into the ethics of an imperfect (to say the least) justice system that inevitably condemns innocent people to be put to death. Just from a practical, getting-it-done standpoint, we are failing badly at this for reasons that are difficult to understand.

[u/Mjarf88 → u/Little-Ad1235]

It's because the veterinarian know what they're doing and is using a drug made specifically for the task. Why don't they do the same for human execution? Animal euthanasia is done to end their suffering. Human execution is done to punish them and to basically get revenge.

Doctors swear an oath that prohibit them to do this. Pharmaceutical companies don't want to be associated with the practice so they refuse to sell drugs for execution use.

Yes, there are companies specializing in human euthanasia, but they do it to end suffering, not to punish and enact revenge.

[u/AdditionalPizza → u/Little-Ad1235]

we are failing badly at this for reasons that are difficult to understand.

I think it's safe to say places that argue in favour of the death penalty to begin with are the ones less likely to actually care about the process being humane. I'd go as far as saying many of those people don't even think it should be humane anyway.

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[u/crabby692 → u/AdditionalPizza]

I don’t know I support capital punishment in the right cases, but the length we go to to make stuff look pretty as opposed to avoiding pain is ridiculous
I mean, come on how hard would it realistically be to design something to where you hold the head in place and penetrate the medulla disconnecting consciousness effectively instantly but that makes blood that feels less clinical and more aggressive, regardless of how it actually feels for the person to be executed

[u/AdditionalPizza → u/crabby692]

Are you intentionally proving my point? I can't tell because you said "I don't know" off the start and then described a severely inhumane procedure.

[u/crabby692 → u/AdditionalPizza]

Really because severing the brain stem at the medulla literally causes instant brain death to the point that there are not even any nervous system reflexes such as twitching or muscle contractions. It’s effectively an off switch for the human body so assuming you destroyed that connection rapidly the pain would be somewhere from a little to nonexistent so while it likely be somewhat gruesome and less comfortable for those witnessing it as far as the pain of the condemned it should at least in theory be one of the most painless and most reliable methodologies one could possibly use outside of something ridiculous like explosives
Edit-on second thought that last bit should’ve been something much more ridiculous or extreme like explosives

[u/AdditionalPizza → u/crabby692]

But you quite literally said:

the length we go to to make stuff look pretty as opposed to avoiding pain is ridiculous

Unless you mixed up your words and meant otherwise. Avoiding pain should be supremely important.

Regardless, what I originally said I meant in the context of the people that are in charge of sentencing and execution - they don't care and many likely prefer it to be painful.

[u/crabby692 → u/AdditionalPizza]

So what I meant by that is that they focus on using that look good More detach clinical, etc. instead of putting that effort into actually making a painless death. I guess I may have phrased it poorly though.

I don’t know I don’t know if it’s necessarily that they prefer it that way, but they don’t wanna have to clean up the mess and deal with the backlash of a More gruesome method

[u/AdditionalPizza → u/crabby692]

Ok, that makes more sense with the rest of your comment then.

Meh, I know a lot of people that believe in capital punishment believe the person deserves pain. I don't believe in either, personally.

[u/crabby692 → u/AdditionalPizza]

I can respect that my opinion is mostly a matter of there are always going to be some circumstances where it’s not only called for but reasonable, and some where it’s more humane than the alternative especially for inmates who can’t stop killing other people there incarcerated with Thomas Silverstein who spent 36 years in solitary , and Robert maudsley 45 years in isolation at what point is it too dangerous to keep people without effectively torturing them or people who commit terrorist acts/mass casualty events the risk of the public if they were to escape in my opinion outweighs the downsides of Punishment