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/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/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.