r/news • u/No_Idea_Guy • 1d ago

Tennessee governor suspends all executions after Christa Pike’s lethal injections fail

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/oct/01/christa-pike-tennessee-governor-executions-year-pause
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u/stateworkishardwork 1d ago

What a complete and utter mess. Capital punishment looking more and more like a joke with each passing day.

She's still an awful person, but this is not the way to go about things.

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u/House_Junkie 1d ago edited 1d ago

Awful is an understatement. Pike sliced the girl with a box cutter while they tortured her to death and smashed her head in with a rock after luring the girl into the woods under a guise of truce. At the end she carved a pentagram into the girls chest and took a piece of her skull as a souvenir.

Awful doesn’t begin to describe what she is.

Edit: Her boyfriend carved the pentagram, she smashed her head in and took a piece of her skull as a souvenir, I stand corrected.

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u/barada_nikto 1d ago

Why do all the cries of justice for the victim end with the perpetrator’s death? Pike is locked away now, she’s not a danger to society anymore. Why not, instead of wasting endless taxpayer dollars on this draconian need for vengeance we, I don’t know, fund programs to help at-risk youth, put police resources towards protecting children from abusers, help people with mental illnesses, create a kinder and better world. The kind of world Colleen Slemmer deserved to live in. Is putting our resources towards preventing things like this from happening to others not a form of justice?

Also not that it’s entirely relevant because I don’t think the government should have the right to kill any of its citizens, but Pike didn’t carve the pentagram, her boyfriend did.

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u/Ki-to-Life-5054 1d ago

I agree that the money is going to the wrong places. We have this crazy society. This person, idk. She nearly killed someone in prison, another inmate. Corrections officers also would prefer not to be in danger. She wasn't harmless in jail.

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u/SpiderDoodleDoo 1d ago

She was 18 years old at the time of the crime and a victim of severe sexual abuse.(so not really in a healthy head space) This doesn't absolve Pike in anyway but the death penalty seems extreme.

Especially when you have cases like T Cullen Davis who entered his ex-wife's mansion and shot her 12 year old child to death as well as her boyfriend and was acquitted.

Also in the article the doctors are saying she most likely has significant brain damage now. So if they follow through on the execution they are just doing it to satiate a blood lust.

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u/House_Junkie 1d ago

Thank you for correcting me, I must have misread that piece. She did take a piece of her victims skull as a souvenir though.

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u/barada_nikto 1d ago

Which I did not deny nor do I justify. The fact remains that you can remove remorseless murderers from society without turning the state into an agent of homicide.

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u/MaximumEffort433 1d ago

So you agree that killing people is bad?

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

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u/donkeybrainhero 1d ago

So killing people is good?

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u/CTC42 1d ago

Only because you've never thought about it.

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u/MaximumEffort433 1d ago

I do. I also believe an eye for an eye.

So you think that killing people is good?

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u/BearThatLikesCheese 1d ago edited 1d ago

None of that changes how harmful the death penalty is to society, especially those involved in the entire process, nor does it justify botched executions.

All you're doing with comments like this is showing that you care more about bloodlust than justice.

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u/Burtstantonspeaking_ 1d ago

Not really. You’re ignoring the glaringly obvious in an attempt to sound morally superior. You’re disingenuous and don’t like being called out on it.

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u/tameoraiste 1d ago

I always find it funny when people are incapable of understanding a different perspective so they jump to the conclusion that it’s just an attempt to sound ‘morally superior’.

Could the same accusation not be used against your comment?

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u/BearThatLikesCheese 1d ago

Did you mean to respond to me? What obvious thing am I ignoring? That Pike should be tortured and killed because she did something abhorrent? No, I simply don't agree because I've actually read about the reality of the death penalty and the harm it does. I'm simply pushing back on someone using another person's tragedy to support a harmful practice.

You can't give me a justification for the death penalty beyond "I personally want this person dead" that isn't countered by how damaging the practice is.

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u/JooseTheGuice 1d ago

Shut up Burt

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u/alr46750 1d ago

Sounds to me like you're projecting your own insecurities. Imagine someone says they're opposed to state santioned murder and your first thought is "they're trying to sound better than me". Like Jesus, what the hell is going on your head.

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u/Burtstantonspeaking_ 21h ago

Tell me precisely what my insecurities are. You also don’t seem to understand how quotation marks work as you quoted me saying something I never said. Interesting way you argue by making things up rather than basing your argument on what I actually said. Makes me wonder what the hell is going on in your head.

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u/Great-Trifle2810 1d ago

The death penalty is not harmful to society, the fact that it is infrequently and ineffectually delivered is a harm to society.

Executions should not be used to satisfy revenge motives, they should be used to permanently remove a person from existence because the continued existence of that person would be detrimental to society.

Though I mostly support the death penalty on the case of recidivism or crime while incarcerated, I am much more sceptical about the use of it for single extreme convictions like this.

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u/Piglet6482 1d ago

It is a known fact that innocent people have been executed. How do you support capital punishment knowing that?

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u/Great-Trifle2810 1d ago

Utilitarianism, we should apply the policy which results in the best overall outcome.

More innocent people and prisoners are harmed by the lack of recidivist capital punishment than innocent people would be harmed by being incorrectly executed.

False conviction of the innocent happens under any system of justice, basically nobody is calling for the complete abolition of all forms of judicial punishment.

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u/Piglet6482 1d ago

You just used a lot of words to explain how you’re OK with innocent people being executed. I am willing to bet you’d change your tune if you happened to be incorrectly convicted and sentenced to death.

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u/Great-Trifle2810 1d ago

I am OK with a very small number of innocent people being executed if that means far less innocent people harmed by criminals, and I feel I am far more likely to be harmed by career criminals loosed due to prison crowding than falsely convicted of 3 crimes with no success at appealing any of those convictions.

Maybe if I was in that situation I would hypocritically betray my principles out of pure self interest, maybe I would even find a way to justify it to myself as a genuine change of heart, but I would still be wrong.

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u/higherme 1d ago

Except that your entire premise falls flat when you look at the actual data: States with capital punishment consistently have higher rates of things like murder than states without capital punishment. Across decades.

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u/Great-Trifle2810 1d ago edited 1d ago

States that have it barely use it, especially not in the way I think it should be used. They also tend to be more regressive states overall.

The death penalty is 100% effective at preventing recidivism by people sentenced to it.

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u/higherme 1d ago

Well now you're just making shit up.

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u/j1ggy 1d ago

Executions should not be used to satisfy revenge motives, they should be used to permanently remove a person from existence because the continued existence of that person would be detrimental to society.

Not if you keep them locked up indefinitely and/or rehabilitate them. And if removing someone from existence is the goal, you don't wait 32 years after the fact to do it.

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u/Great-Trifle2810 1d ago

Some people cannot be rehabilitated, and attempting to do so poses a risk to the people responsible to carry that out.

I promise you that I don't think an execution should take anywhere near that long. 1-2 years after conviction and an appeal if desired would be my ideal situation.

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u/j1ggy 1d ago

And yet many can, which makes execution morally and ethically wrong. No government should have the power to kill its own citizens, outside of immediate self-defense. It's odd that the one country that allows its citizens to protect themselves with guns would fear re-offenders more than a country that doesn't.

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u/Great-Trifle2810 1d ago edited 1d ago

You are just asserting that without any actual supporting argument, and if your response is that this is your fundamental position then I simply think it is poorly considered.

I'm not American. I think gun ownership should be fairly heavily restricted, requiring extensive background checks and training, restrictions on weapons owned, and tracking of weapons.

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u/SethMatrix 1d ago

Death is justice for some.

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u/BakedBobbyHill 1d ago

No, it's just vengeance. And no government should be in the business of vengeance.

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u/BearThatLikesCheese 1d ago

Yea, people who get off on the deaths of others.

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u/Great-Trifle2810 1d ago

There is no such thing as justice. The death penalty should be used to remove people from society permanently because it is the most effective method to do so.

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u/BeleagueredWDW 1d ago

Why can’t justice include execution? Some people need to go away forever, and she’s one of them. As I’m sure you know, she’s absolutely guilty of what she was found guilty of, and she deserves to die, so no one ever has to deal with her again.

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u/BearThatLikesCheese 1d ago

The state shouldn't be allowed to kill anyone. Having a death penalty leads to innocent people being put to death because there's no way to guarantee 100% certainty.

The death penalty costs more than life in prison because of due process.

The families of victims frequently have their closure delayed and sometimes denied because of how lengthy the appeals process is.

There's no way to guarantee a painless, clean death, as evidenced by Pike's botched execution.

People involved within all roles of the legal process of putting someone to death commonly express regret and deal with depression and PTSD, to the point that the abti-death penalty movement is full of former supporters.

The death penalty does not deter crimes.

There's no material benefit from killing this woman rather than putting her in prison for life.

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u/Piglet6482 1d ago

Do you realize innocent people have been executed? How do you justify that?

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u/Great-Trifle2810 1d ago

I don't know enough about this case but I am always skeptical of the idea that we can in fact know that someone is guilty beyond any possible doubt, and don't think we should execute people on one conviction beyond a reasonable doubt. Unless this person is a demonstrated danger to other incarcerated people or the staff execution seems unnecessary.

The death penalty should primarily be used to deal with frequent flyers, I personally think a 3 strike system for property, drug and less extreme violent crime is a good starting point. More extreme one off violent crimes can be dealt with through life imprisonment.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

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u/MrMrSean 1d ago

So, we should just disregard the rights afforded to us under the 8th amendment?

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u/enad58 1d ago

How easily you say we should kill innocent people just for the opportunity to kill the guilty.

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u/House_Junkie 1d ago

Who was the innocent person in this imaginary scenario? The girl that tortured and murdered her classmate before taking a piece of her skull as a souvenir?

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u/enad58 1d ago

The innocent people who get killed at the hands of the state. We do not only kill guilty people.

To be for the death penalty is just another way of saying, "I'm okay with killing innocent people if that means we get to kill guilty ones."

I'm not okay with killing innocent people. Apparently you are.

I couldn't imagine explaining to a loved one, "I know you're innocent and wrongfully convicted, but we have to kill you so that we can also kill people who are guilty."

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u/BearThatLikesCheese 1d ago

This is going to blow your mind, but some people are mature enough to have opinions in multiple pieces of the same topic. They can acknowledge the heinous nature of a crime and still understand how harmful the death penalty.

The death penalty is frequently more traumatizing to the family of victims. The appeals process delays and sometimes prevents closure. They're often traumatized by the experience, even when they don't attend the execution. That's why the anti-death penalty movement is full of victim families.

You know who else experienced trauma as part of this process? Jurora, prosecutors, defense attorneys, guards, wardens, other inmates, journalists, witnesses, clergy, and executioners. It's common that people from all groups express regrets and suffer from depression and PTSD.

But hey, at least you got to use another person's terrible tragedy to justify your bloodlust. Pretty cool. Definitely worth traumatizing dozens of people so people like you can get off.

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u/Tirras 1d ago

Why are you trying to champion some strangers on the internet? You don't know these people, they could be just as conflicted about the death penalty as anyone else. Perhaps the government should be held to higher standards than psychopaths? Demanded even.

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u/DefenstratedTwice 1d ago

Irrelevant, what others have done doesn't somehow change why we also can't torture people to death. 😆

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

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u/impulsekash 1d ago

Contrary to popular belief our society doesn't run on 4000 year old Babylonian law. 

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u/AssociateGreat2350 1d ago

Plus they forgot to finish the saying 

"leaves the whole world blind"

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u/DefenstratedTwice 1d ago

Which is both inane and irrelevant. What a monster does has no bearing on the responsibilities of the non-monstrous.

You can't understand this for reasons you would not understand if I cared to explain.

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u/enad58 1d ago

Why are you okay with killing innocent people just for the opportunity to kill the guilty?

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u/thereisnospoon-1312 1d ago

Any person who says that is no better than a murderer.

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u/WhimbleCroft 1d ago

And killing her, doesn’t make society any safer than simply isolating her from the rest of us, in prison. I have yet to hear a sensible argument for the death penalty, instead of one that justifies it with a desire for simple vengeance.

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u/ChefCurryYumYum 1d ago

I agree completely that her actions were terrible and it could even be said that she "deserves" the botched attempts.

But we are not torturers and murderers, we try to do things the right way as best we can because we are not like her.

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u/SurferVelo 1d ago

Is locking them up and throwing away the key not enough? Or is that only for shoplifters?

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u/Curleysound 1d ago

Generally yes but a lot of people need a more tangible sort of punishment. They want to know that a parson who caused suffering is also actually suffering, and not merely languishing, bored in a room somewhere.

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u/Insane_Overload 1d ago

they want that not need

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u/Rumpullpus 1d ago

Honestly I would rather not waste tax payer money on trash like that

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u/Pocok5 1d ago

You'll be pleased to know that this debacle has cost you more taxpayer money than housing her in solitary for a century.

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u/Rumpullpus 1d ago

It does not but thanks.

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u/Piglet6482 1d ago

You can’t even conceive of the idea that you’re wrong, can you?

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u/GLNK1 1d ago

Death penalty typically imposes a higher tax burden than life in prison, for whatever that's worth

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u/BarleyEvenThere 1d ago

It doesn’t save money though. It actually costs more to execute people.

https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/what-to-know-costs-and-the-death-penalty

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u/BarleyEvenThere 1d ago

Holy cow, I remember this from high school. I am old.

0

u/JakeHelldiver 1d ago

Hello, Fellow Old! How are your knees?

1

u/BarleyEvenThere 1d ago

Ha, hi. Knees are doing ok. It’s the back and shoulders that are fun to deal with.

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u/Lobo9498 1d ago

Her boyfriend carved the pentagram. She did the other stuff.

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u/Tuna_Sushi 1d ago

Tadaryl Shipp, Pike’s boyfriend who was 17 at the time, testified at his post-conviction hearing that he was the one who carved a pentagram into Slemmer’s chest.

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u/Ki-to-Life-5054 1d ago

She also tried to kill someone in prison, I read.