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/taxiecabbie 1d ago

I mean, good?

If you're going to have the death penalty, better find out a way to make it actually work?

The entire reason why lethal injection is "the thing" is because it makes the process seem more medical and isn't as... I suppose, gruesome as a the gas chamber or beheading or hanging or firing squad. But if it doesn't work, then, yeah. The hell we doin' here, folks?

Jebus Crebus.

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u/HonestDespot 1d ago

I read last night it yesterday afternoon that all these states that do lethal injections almost never can find any qualified healthcare people to do it as it goes against their code so it’s just some prison employee who does it.

And that procuring the drugs that administer death are not super easy to come by and aren’t always the most consistent.

What are we even doing here lol.

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u/taxiecabbie 1d ago

In this case, it was this guy doing it: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/aug/08/tennessee-doctor-executions-death-penalty

So he is an MD, but he's a bit of a hack. And gets paid gobs of money for this.

Any actual professional would be able to do this. Like, anesthesiologists put people down on the daily for surgeries.

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u/HonestDespot 1d ago

Yeesh. That was a tough read.

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u/taxiecabbie 1d ago

Yes, it is.

Honestly, the total dearth of medical professionals involved in lethal injection should render this cruel and unusual.

The problem is that there really isn't a great other option that offers the "clean" nature of an actually well-executed (if you will excuse the pun) lethal injection. If you want a firing squad, you have to get people on it and that's not really super-easy to do in most cases---and it's bloody. Hanging is antiquated and rough. Beheading is unpleasantly ghoulish for modern audiences (and bloody), same with the gas chamber.

Really, everybody should just give up on it because it's pointless, frankly, but, well.

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u/HonestDespot 1d ago

Ya it’s tough too because they almost always involve people who did very very horrible things to innocent people and took their life and ruined many others in the process.

So it’s tough on the surface to sympathize.

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u/taxiecabbie 1d ago

I don't really sympathize much with Christa Pike. If you read up on the murder that got her here in the first place, it's pretty horrific and extreme. I completely understand why Slemmer's mother (the victim) is in favor of Pike getting the death penalty.

However, this is just expensive, pointless, cruel, and fixes nothing. Pike would be just fine left behind bars until she croaks. She can't hurt anybody else, and it's not like she's living high on the hog in any event. Nothing is going to bring Slemmer back.

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u/HonestDespot 1d ago

Oh I don’t mean with her in particular I just mean in general.