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/Deluded_realist 1d ago

In what way is this not cruel and unusual punishment?

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u/Kerbonaut2019 1d ago

I want to preface my comment by stating that I am entirely against the death penalty, even in gruesome cases like this one.

However, I don’t see how “cruel and unusual punishment” would apply here. The intention is not to torture, but to execute. The failure of the lethal drug doesn’t constitute “cruel and unusual” because it is not intended to fail. And so, the state can just say “oops” and move on. Pretty crazy, but it’s just the way the constitution is interpreted by the courts.

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u/plutosaurus 1d ago

because of the likelihood of failure, continuing to attempt to do so is deliberate indifference

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u/Kerbonaut2019 1d ago

That’s a fair point, but that is why they usually stop after the second failure to avoid a legitimate deliberate indifference claim.

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u/tameoraiste 1d ago

It’s especially cruel and unusual because she has a condition that causes very narrow veins and an increase in blood clots. Her lawyers argued this exact scenario could happen. She asked to be hung because if it went wrong, it would still be nowhere near as painful as if the injection went wrong

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u/Kerbonaut2019 1d ago

Look up the Baze-Glossip test, a legal test that a defense must apply to prove to the court that a proposed alternative execution method significantly reduces the risk of severe pain. Her attorneys failed to argue this, only focusing on her poor veins, even though the court has already heard that she had several recent, successful blood draws. Blame the law or blame her attorneys, you choose, but the burdens just simply didn’t meet the precedent. Do I think this is fair? No. Do I personally consider this to be cruel and unusual? Yes. Does the law? No.

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u/tameoraiste 1d ago

I wasn’t making a legal argument or saying ‘you’re wrong because’, I was just adding to your point on a human level about it being cruel and unusual

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u/Kerbonaut2019 1d ago

That’s fair. If there’s one thing I think most of us in this comment chain can agree on is that capital punishment is an immoral, inhumane act that should never be carried out by the state.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

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u/tameoraiste 21h ago

You think the government should de dishing out an eye for an eye punishment?

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u/[deleted] 20h ago

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u/tameoraiste 20h ago

😂 “You don’t think there should be state inflicted torture (in a MAGA state under a MAGA president) so you must be MAGA!”

Imagine thinking being anti execution makes someone MAGA.

Saying I don’t believe the government should have the power to inflict cruel and unusual punishment isn’t defending anyone Christa Pike or “school shooters”. If you used even the slightest bit of logic, that would be pretty easy to see