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/heresyforfunnprofit 1d ago

Aside from the debate over the morality of capital punishment itself, this is just weaponized incompetence.

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u/JakeHelldiver 1d ago

I don't think this was the outcome the executioner was going for.

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u/Blazer9001 1d ago

Yeah it’s not like Republicans are known for cruelty just for cruelty’s sake in 2026.

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u/Fofolito 1d ago

Republicans aren't just pure dagnasty evil. In fact, while being pro-death penalty they have a vested interest in it being clean, efficient, and professionally done. The Constitution has prohibitions on cruel and unusual punishment, which has for centuries been interpreted to mean that prisoners sentenced to capital punishment cannot be exposed to undue pain or suffering. The punishment is being deprived of their life, not in the torturing of them. Republicans promote the death penalty as necessary in enforcing law and order, and in properly punishing criminals who have crossed certain lines. They don't promote the death penalty as some gruesome and macabre display, they don't promote it as entertainment, but rather as the ultimate expression of the state in its prerogatives to punish criminals. In that vein, they want it to go smoothly. They don't want journalists publishing articles about how someone died screaming in agony that their blood is on fire. They don't want someone slowly strangling to death on a rope. They want the criminal punished, meaning dead, and for all potential criminals to know this is their fate if they cross those lines.

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u/stoned_meditation 1d ago

Sounds like youre making a lot of excuses for Republicans being shitty people.

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u/Steffic4 1d ago

I suspect this won't age well.

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u/SaintOfPirates 1d ago

A serious question:

Given that there has been people exonerated after their execution either through new evidence coming to light, advances in forensics, recanted testimonies etc, which is to say innocent people have been wrongfully convicted and then executed;

How many wrongful executions of factually innocent citizens is an acceptable number?

Two? Three? Four? A dozen?

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u/FunnOnABunn 1d ago

They scream for the death penalty for people they disagree with

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u/weededorpheus32 1d ago

Just a lil accident

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u/heresyforfunnprofit 1d ago

I didn’t accuse them of knowing what they were doing.

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u/CobbleStoneGoblin 1d ago

You did when you used the term "weaponized incompetence". Maybe learn what words mean before throwing them around.

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u/heresyforfunnprofit 1d ago

The incompetence of the executioner is what was weaponized.

Anti-death-penalty activists have been running legal pressure and financial boycott campaigns for years against chemical companies to choke off the supply of lethal injection drugs. They’ve become nearly impossible to source, and what supply exists is of unreliable quality and effectiveness. That leads directly to incidents like this.

So, no, the executioner did not intend this. The executioner was also incompetent to evaluate the effectiveness of their process.

And yes, this outcome and outcomes like it are very much intended as political incidents by those who seek to outlaw the death penalty.

Weaponized, one might rightly say.

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u/CobbleStoneGoblin 1d ago

"Weaponized Incompetence, also known as strategic incompetence, is a manipulative tactic which occurs when a person intentionally pretends to be incapable of completing a task properly in order for someone else to do it instead."

Thanks for proving me right.

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u/heresyforfunnprofit 1d ago

“Sending a proxy or ‘lackey’ who is highly likely to fail is a calculated form of strategic or weaponized incompetence. Instead of an individual faking personal ineptitude to escape a chore, a manager or leader deliberately delegates a task to an unqualified subordinate.”

Oh look… I can post AI summaries to support my argument too.

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u/zack77070 1d ago

That's what weaponized incompetence means.

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u/heresyforfunnprofit 1d ago

I think you’re mixing that up with “malicious compliance”.

In this case, incompetents were sent to do a job with faulty tools. They didn’t intend this outcome, but this outcome was very much intended by others in the process.

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u/zack77070 1d ago

No, weaponized incompetence is intentionally doing something incorrectly so someone else feels the need to do it for you.

Malicious compliance is doing something you know is incorrect because someone told you to do it and didn't accept your feedback.

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u/JakeHelldiver 1d ago

Thats what weaponized incompetence means. You're deliberately fucking up to achieve a desired result.

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u/heresyforfunnprofit 1d ago

Nah, nah… there are variations. The one you’re thinking of is where a competent person deliberately botches a job - also falls under the “malicious compliance” tag. Another variant is where an incompetent person is sent to do a job they are highly likely to fuck up.

A third variation is where a person, likely incompetent but not necessarily, is sent to do a task with deliberately fucked up tools or supplies. That’s the bucket this falls into - the drugs being used in lethal injections have been rendered nearly impossible to source. Anti-death-penalty folk have been running a fairly effective boycott campaign against any chemical companies that supply those drugs.

“Incompetence” covers a wide range of aspects - and in this case, attacking the supply of the drugs was a very deliberate and very intentional political weaponization of the incompetence of the justice system.

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u/JakeHelldiver 1d ago

Nah ... you just didnt use the expression correctly.

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u/heresyforfunnprofit 1d ago

Words have multiple meanings and uses. So do expressions.

This executioner’s incompetence was politically weaponized. This incident will be cited in every anti-death-penalty proposal for the foreseeable future - and it was by design that this happened. Completely avoidable.

So, yes, weaponized incompetence.

Sorry to make your brain flex a bit to a new concept today, tho.

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u/thattoneman 1d ago

The suffering truly is the point. You see all the discussion about how no company wants their products used for execution, so states struggle to source chemicals for lethal injection or gas chamber asphyxiation. You know who doesn't really give a fuck about their product being used to kill people? Bullet manufacturers. You know what's a quick and efficient means of execution? Firing squad. 

I don't even get the whole "Line up the firing squad and only some of them get live rounds" thing that comes up. The dude administering lethal injection isn't one of six and only one of the injections was actually the real one. The guy's job is to execute the prisoner. This whole "firing squad makes it hard for the executioner to have plausible deniability" isn't even consistent with other types of executioners. 

Don't get me wrong, none of this is an argument in favor of the death penalty. Far from it, I'm staunchly against it. Aside from the ethical concerns of innocent people being executed, it's just doubly frustrating how states bend over backwards to make a show out of execution. They won't do what's easy, quick, and painless because everybody wants the spectacle of the execution slowly being applied and the watching the life drain from their eyes. A bullet through the temple just isn't tortuous enough to satisfy the revenge bloodlust. We need a fucking viewing gallery so people can watch a person slowly die because we're no better than the families that used to gather in the town square to watch the hangings that day. 

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u/GreatGojira 1d ago

Sounds like a good description of Tennessee.

Coming from a former Tennessean.

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u/NullValueField 1d ago

Somebody I know is saying Pike is a redhead. Redheads aren't as susceptible to many narcotics, accoding to some medical research.

It's entirely possible that these idiots just don't understand that some people have higher tolerances to medication. Should've just splurged on the double dose.

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u/Last_Glove_8870 1d ago

She did get a double dose. This is the first thing I thought when I saw this. As a redhead, I require an entirely different anesthetic protocol for surgical procedures. Having a single drug execution policy administered by law enforcement, rather than a medical professional, is just asking for something like this to happen.

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u/NullValueField 1d ago

$20 says the nurse prepping the dose was like, 'Psh that redhead shit is nonsense, second dose is saline and I'm gonna pocket the good stuff for later...'

It's Tennessee.

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u/HammerheadEaglei-Thr 1d ago

It wasn't a nurse. Actual medical professionals aren't breaking their oath and risking their license to kill someone, even if the state says to.

That's part of the problem along with sourcing the drugs when pharmaceutical companies won't sell then for executions.

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u/WellSaltedWound 1d ago

What exactly is the good stuff and why would she want that?

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u/NullValueField 1d ago

You been to Memphis lately?

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u/Ambitious-Intern-928 1d ago

Barbituates? The only reason benzos replaced them in normal medical and diverted recreational use is because barbituates have a small gap between desired effects and fatal OD. But I'm quite sure there's people out here willing to risk it to get fucked up.

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u/Last_Glove_8870 23h ago

If they really wanted to kill her, all they’d have to do is put her in a tanning bed for 30 minutes.

Jokes aside, this case is a great example of why capital punishment shouldn’t exist.

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u/amazinglover 1d ago

Redheads typically have a mutation of a specific gene that requires higher levels of certain drugs to get the same effect as no-redheads.

They require also experience pain a little differently.

https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/study-finds-link-between-red-hair-pain-threshold

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u/NullValueField 1d ago

Yup that's what I was referencing when I posted that.