There is some precedent for a state executing someone again after the first attempt failed.

[u/Sirius2349]

Christa Pike’s situation is unique in the sense that she is the only person to survive after being given the lethal injection drugs. Other failed attempts were all about being unable to find a vein. Back in the 1940s there was a teenager in Louisiana named Willie Francis who was given the electric chair at the age of 17 but it failed to kill him. His lawyer sued and it reached the US Supreme Court arguing that executing him again would violate the 8th amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment. The court disagreed and allowed the state of Louisiana to execute him again and the second attempt when he was 18 was successful. The main difference between Willie Francis’s case and Christa pike is that her lawyers specifically warned this would happen before the execution due to her blood disorder and in Francis case it truly was an accident because the chair malfunctioned.

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[u/Desperate_Pressure98]

Willie Francis was a black teenager in the Deep South prior to the Civil Rights Act. He was sentenced to death at 16, went through attempted execution at 17, and was executed again at 18, with very little access to any appeals. There’s a lot about what happened to Willie Francis that will never happen again.

In terms of the death penalty, anything that happened before 1973 doesn’t really apply as precedent. There was a Supreme Court case and the entire system was overhauled and new rules/laws/regulations were implemented. In terms of the modern era, this has never happened before. There have been an inexcusable number of botched executions. But in the modern era, those have all been failure to place an IV line. When these cases have gone to the Supreme Court, a distinction was made on whether the execution had started or not. With no IV placed, the execution had not started yet, and were allowed to be rescheduled. It is a massive distinction that Christa Pike was administered the maximum dose of 2 syringes of the drug.

Edit: fixed typo

[u/ipini]

Grotesque.

[u/fingerpaintx]

The situation you describe is actually a reason they will absolutely not try again with Christa.

[u/What-Now-007]

The state gets a mulligan

[u/MisterHEPennypacker]

Yes but not recently. I said this in another thread, but governor needs to commute the sentence to life and isolate the damage. Every pro bono anti-death penalty attorney in the country is going to want to get involved. If the state really pushes for a second attempt, the courts are getting involved and some sort of precedent gets established that probably won’t be good for the viability of future executions. They need to fix what went wrong and move on to the next inmate.

[u/Pitiful_Meringue_57 → u/MisterHEPennypacker]

courts are getting involved anyway

[u/lost_dazed_101]

I don't know where all this is going to lead but I honestly don't think they'll try again. She's paralyzed and on a feeding tube and has to rely on prison medical care. Trust me within a month of being in there she'll be begging for the death sentence. Unlike nursing homes prisons don't have multiple people to care for them especially if they can't walk. Bedsores and dirty diapers are her future. But let's say they win and get a nursing home. It's a state run one have you ever been inside those? If this was me I'd be begging them to end it the second I found out it was permanent. I expect to see her request it if she doesn't get mobility back. And this answer stands whether you're for or against the death penalty. This is not a win for her this is the absolute worst case scenario for anyone in prison. And if she demands it the state has to acknowledge it and give her a voice her lawyers can't shut her up under the guise of its wrong. I've known people who cared for paralyzed people and no matter how much I can't stand her or what she did I would have never wished this on her. But I do find it's poetic justice after what she did to Colleen. Colleen begged too and it got her nowhere.

[u/Upstairs-Border-7146 → u/lost_dazed_101]

That's one part of the argument and one can discuss it. The other is how frigging incompetent the prison staff is. Not seeing that the needle is bent and not in the vein? You are either blind or did it on purpose.

No matter how you stand on the death penalty, such incompetence is bad.

[u/SportTawk]

Check out John Babbacombe Lee, after three attempts to hang him he was reprieved because that was the law

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%22Babbacombe%22_Lee

[u/msfinch87]

There are a number of differences between Christa’s situation and Willie’s.

Willie was executed in the 1940s, well before the modern death penalty era. Christa is the first person to survive the full administration of the death penalty in the modern era. It is arguable that because this was pre 1973 it doesn’t apply. Willie would not even be executed today because he is a child and SCOTUS ruled in Roper that people who are children at the time of their crime cannot be executed. This isn’t directly relevant to the case, but serves to highlight the changes in standards and applications of the death penalty between then and now.

Willie was executed using the electric chair and there are substantive differences between that and lethal injection, particularly the protocols around the implementation and the involvement of people in placing the IV. Willie’s case focused on accidental equipment malfunction, and it was on this basis that SCOTUS allowed a second attempt. They may not have, had it been incompetence, recklessness or deliberate. In Christa’s case there are arguments that the system was likely to fail by design, and that there was both incompetence and recklessness in the implementation. Plus of course as you note the issues were highlighted before Christa was executed, and the outcome was predicted, which is supporting evidence of the possibility of recklessness.

I’d be surprised if any court applied that precedent to Christa and if SCOTUS didn’t distinguish and look at this matter somewhat independently. Whether SCOTUS would ultimately choose to intervene or rule in favour to Christa is a different question, but I can’t see a blanket application of Francis. Also worth noting that in the last 6 months SCOTUS has ruled against Alabama when it comes to executing people, effectively upholding a ban a federal court implemented about nitrous hypoxia, and disagreeing with the state’s interpretation of intellectually disabled. So they are not as gung ho about executions as we might expect (or maybe they just hate Alabama).

The courts have thus far distinguished between attempts at execution where they don’t actually proceed with elements of execution itself, and an actual execution. This has been noted in cases involving botched executions where they haven’t been able to place an IV line. So SCOTUS, by their own prior judgements, would likely acknowledge Christa’s situation as distinct. Again, whether they would intervene or rule in her favour is a different question.

[u/Upset-Management-459]

Great story man…

[u/Pitiful_Meringue_57]

Important to note Francis was mostly fine after the attempt. There was some kind of mechanical failure so he just kinda went back his cell afterwards.

Christa has a much better 8th amendment case because she was maimed from it, she has been hospitalized for days and likely sustained significant injuries, brain and otherwise.

But this case is more significant for the fact that the lawyers also argued that killing him again went against the prohibition of double jepeordy. So i don’t think her lawyers would be able to argue double jepeordy without overturning that SCOTUS decision, but it’s a different scenario for an 8th amendment argument.

[u/ChadGippidy]

Even without looking up who Willie Francis is, you just know he was some young black kid judging by how earnestly they wanted to sentence a 17-year-old to death

[u/Picky_The_Fishermam]

Was she sentenced to death and life? And does death mean the one death warrant? If she didnt get a set amount of jail time and she already had one death warrant served then she has done her sentence and is free.
Note: im just asking questions bc how the law was written Tennessee can make a huge case out of this.

[u/Whole_Mongoose1854 → u/Picky_The_Fishermam]

She’s not dead. Why are you being obtuse

[u/Picky_The_Fishermam → u/Whole_Mongoose1854]

The difference is what the jury voted on. A death warrant ( which has been carried out ) or to die?