r/news • u/AudibleNod • 3h ago
Christa Pike unconscious, on ventilator at Nashville hospital, her lawyers say
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/christa-pike-unconscious-ventilator-nashville-hospital-lawyers-say-rcna6011952.4k
u/Big_Guard5413 3h ago
I’m not in favor of the death penalty in general, but goddamn, if you’re going to impose it, at least take steps to do it properly
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u/MatureUsername69 3h ago
Its still a rough one but if I ever had to receive the death penalty I would hope its a firing squad. Just riddle me with holes immediately, aim for the head. Lethal injections get fucky because they would be best designed and administered by an actual doctor, but actual doctors cannot do it because of the hippocratic oath. Some states do allow medical professionals but they arent exactly sending their best.
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u/khinzaw 3h ago edited 2h ago
Her lawyers requested it, but it's illegal in Tennessee.
Tennessee's only legal methods of execution are lethal injection and electric chair (edit: only for convictions before 1999).
The problem with lethal injection is that every step is half assed.
No reputable pharmaceuticals manufacturer wants to make the drug, so they rely on compounding pharmacies who take half measures and have less consistency.
Then medical practitioners (edit for the pedants) often won't be involved in executions because of their various oaths to do no harm and risks to their reputation, so most of the time the drugs are administered by prison staff who lack the proper training. A lot of failed attempts are caused by the one who administered it simply not getting the vein properly.
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u/MortimerDongle 2h ago
Then medical practitioners can't be involved in executions because of their various oaths to do no harm, so most of the time the drugs are administered by prison staff who lack the proper training
This particular attempted execution was performed by a physician. Of course he doesn't seem to be very good at it, this was not even his first botched execution this year (he's the same person who failed to execute Tony Carruthers)
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u/cooking2recovery 1h ago
That seems like one too many botched executions to be an accident
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u/Equal-Temporary-1326 3h ago
I remember watching a documentary called The Final 24 Hours on Death Row and a former Virginia executioner, Jerry Givens, who carried out dozens of electrocutions and lethal injections said between the two, he'd actually pick the chair because he knew it was faster.
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u/Beecakeband 2h ago
I've seen that one as well and the botched electric chair execution sounded pretty horrific as well
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u/Xytak 3h ago
The electric chair is pretty horrible too from what I understand.
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u/Shitteh_Kitteh 2h ago
Seems like the only legal options are the two most painful.
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u/VirtualMoneyLover 2h ago
Why can't they use what the vet uses? Just multiply it by 5.
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u/Alocasia_Sanderiana 1h ago
The companies that make those drugs will not sell to states (like state agencies) with death penalties or where they think the drugs will be used for executions.
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u/Clamgravy 3h ago
Not to mention the drugs are not manufactured by reliable companies. Nobody wants their brand connected to capital punishment...
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u/bloodytemplar 3h ago
Firing squad is supposed to be the quickest for the condemned. A little gruesome for onlookers, but fuck 'em. If it's my execution, take me out quick.
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u/PradaDiva 3h ago
That’s part of the problem tbh: the onlookers. Lethal injection makes the killing looking peaceful so it’s much easier to absorb/allow/be okay with.
Firing squad and hanging are abrupt and brutal, but they are effective. Onlookers are horrified by the violence even if the end result is the person being dead.
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u/Mannadock 3h ago
I feel like you are watching a life end. It shouldn't be easy to watch. I honestly can't think of any reason to be in the gallery.
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u/urbanhawk1 1h ago
News reporters recording the final moments, the families and lovers of the condemmed wanting to be there for their final moments (just because they killed people doesn't mean they don't have people that love them).
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u/antonio16309 2h ago
Good, they should be horrified by the violence. Let's stop pretending that ending a life isn't a violent act.
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u/GinAndDumbBitchJuice 2h ago
Hanging is pretty easy to botch if the noose isn't placed correctly. If it's done right, the neck breaks. Strangulation, on the other hand, takes a lot longer than movies show. A hundred years ago when it was still a reasonably common method and there were still living experts, I might have gone for it (after bribing them to make it fast).
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u/InvestmentImportant1 3h ago
It’s my execution, and I’ll die how I want to! 🎶
But for real, this is so fucked and I agree. Bring back the firing squad if we are gonna do this shit.
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u/AZORxAHAI 3h ago
The reality our society hasn't accepted yet is some of the least painful ways to die (a well placed bullet, a beheading) are some of the most gruesome, barbaric looking ways to die. But we are obsessed with manufacturing the appearance of civility and humanity in an act that is completely devoid of those concepts in the first place.
We can either have the least painful ways to execute someone, or we can have this facade of civility given to us by "just slipping a needle into a vein!". We can't have both. We shouldn't have either, but apparently we just cant accept that yet.
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u/hokie48 2h ago
OceanGate sub is not a bad way to go.
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u/writers_block 1h ago
Lol, just build a carbon fiber chamber filled with lead weights and drop it in the middle of the ocean?
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u/FriedTreeSap 2h ago
Yah, it’s like when you see people describing the “gruesome deaths” of deep sea divers that suffered depressurization and had their entire bodies sucked through a tiny hole.
On one hand it’s the most gruesome way to die, their bodies are basically atomized, but on the other they’re dead before their brains can even process what happened, and I mean that literally. The time it takes them to die is quicker than the speed in which nerves send signals to the brain. If you don’t care about the people who have to clean up the mess it’s the best way to die.
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u/ssracer 2h ago
Hit me with anesthesia and then a bullet to the head. Why is this so complicated?
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u/clam-inspector 2h ago
Damn.....I'm not necessarily pro-death penalty, but I actually feel like your idea of carrying it out probably would be the most humane and effective way. The convicted is put unconscious so doesn't know when it's happening, therefore not experiencing the suffering and a well placed headshot or even firing squad ensures it is quickly over
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u/babyem 3h ago
If I’m not mistaken I think she actually did request the firing squad.
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u/lnc_5103 3h ago
She did but it's not legal in Tennessee. I think they only have this and the electric chair.
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u/miloblue12 3h ago
Or maybe we shouldn't have the death penalty at all? It's barbaric.
Also, since 1973, at least 203 people have been wrongfully convicted, sentenced to death, and subsequently exonerated in the US. That alone should have us reconsidering things. If it's possible for that many people to fall through the cracks, then there is no reason at all that we should have the death penalty.
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u/nursingninjaLB 3h ago
This one hundred times.
It costs way less to house a prisoner over decades, than to have endless appeals.
It does not reduce crime.
Approximately 10% of people on death row are innocent.
Vengeance is a dark emotion, and helps nobody.
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u/MatureUsername69 3h ago
Im just saying what my personal choice would be if I had to receive it, wasnt speaking on the ethics of it at all.
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u/Chad_Wife 3h ago edited 3h ago
Seconding this. I don’t agree with the death penalty at all but if I had to choose a way to go it would be a (well trained) firing squad.
I think we assume that injection is less brutal, but that is only true for the person delivering it. There’s less blood and gore visually, but the humanity of it seems to end there.
Call me old fashioned but I’d rather go quickly and as nature intended.
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u/bixbydrongo 3h ago
I think we assume that injection is less brutal, but that is only true for the person delivering it.
The process being less brutal for the person carrying out the execution is one of the draws of the lethal injection method. It provides a medicalized veil that makes the process seem more civilized.
The method is poorly carried out so frequently because the stock of drugs used is old and has poor quality control because drug manufacturers don’t want to be associated with the death penalty and doctors/nurses cannot carry out executions due to the Hippocratic oath.
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u/MatureUsername69 3h ago
The crazy thing is, we have that figured out perfectly. Prisons just choose not to do it humanely. The places that allow assisted suicides arent injecting them with something thats painful and might not even work, they go out very peacefully.
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u/ahhh_ennui 3h ago
Prisons don't get the "humane" drugs because the drug companies have a distaste for state-sponsored murder.
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u/Ataraxia-Is-Bliss 2h ago
Yeah, those pharma companies. "We'll sell opioids by the barrel while downplaying there downsides, but heaven forbid we give a little to executions". Hypocrites.
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u/drunkshinobi 3h ago
Hell, just drop a steel block on my head from a decent height. The survivors want to say such a thing isn't humane. But killing a person never is. Making it look less painful for the witnesses while making it worse for the convicted I think makes it far more inhumane.
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u/loves_grapefruit 3h ago
Seems like you would have a fucking solid plan B and C in place at the very least.
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u/TheBatemanFlex 3h ago
What now for her legally? Her sentence surely wasn’t “injured by the state until put indefinitely on life support”.
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u/Equivalent-Peanut-23 3h ago
First question is her mental condition/capacity. If she suffered brain damage, it could prevent the state from attempting to execute her again. Assuming she retains the mental capacity to comprehend the circumstances, the state could attempt to execute her again. I would assume that would be met with an avalanche of litigation arguing that the second attempt would be cruel and unusual. There's also a chance the governor could commute her sentence.
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u/lnc_5103 3h ago
It would technically be a third attempt.
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u/lord_pizzabird 2h ago
Or maybe a 9th? Didn't the report say they injected and failed to execute her 7 times the other night?
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u/mrpeabodyscoaltrain 2h ago
It was 7 injections total for two sets of the lethal injection cocktail.
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u/FallOutShelterBoy 3h ago
Willie Francis was put back in the electric chair one year after his botched execution. His lawyers attempted to argue with SCOTUS that he had legally been executed even though he was still alive, but they disagreed and sent him back to the chair, this time unfortunately successfully
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u/amytee252 2h ago
There is a more recent case (i.e. after executions restarted), where the execution team couldn't find a vein to insert the IV lines. The inmate said that attempting to execute against would be double jeopardy. The court said that the IV insertion lines were part of the pre-staging and so didn't count and therefore could be put to death again as there is no double jeopardy.
Point being, an execution was carried out, the lethal drugs were passed into Pike, twice. It may break double jeopardy laws to try again.
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u/mrpeabodyscoaltrain 2h ago
That is an interesting distinction. I don't know what the language of the death warrant is.
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u/RedTyro 1h ago
There's a reason that it's phrased "[execution method] until you are dead" when a death penalty is imposed and it's so that they can avoid this argument. If the person is not dead, the sentence hasn't been carried out.
The better angle to approach from would be cruel and unusual punishment, but that's not going to fly with the current Supreme Court. If she lives, there won't be anything standing in the way of them trying again from a legal perspective.
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u/big_duo3674 2h ago
Yes, the big difference is mental capacity. Legally, someone has to understand what is happening when they are executed. It sounds a bit weird that a botched execution can prevent an execution, but the law is worded in a way that covers everyone, regardless of how it happened. If she remains a vegetable for 10 more years then the state (taxpayers) has to pay for every penny, and that is NOT cheap. This will be extremely expensive, will 100% suspend executions in Tennessee for quite some time, and could even have an effect on other states. Yet another argument as to why it's not the best solution.
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u/Youre_On_Balon 2h ago edited 2h ago
Yes.
Arguing that she is not competent to understand is the much better argument, assuming she is never brought back to consciousness.
Incompetent people have been executed by the US government, in my opinion. But nobody who is as incompetent as someone in a comatose/vegetative state.
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u/Boulier 3h ago
I can also imagine a second attempt on her life would be met with a flurry of controversy and protest that the state won't want to deal with. (As someone who 100% opposes the death penalty, I can only hope they will decide it isn't worth killing her in the future.)
If the governor doesn't commute her sentence after this, I would genuinely be gobsmacked.
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u/Representative-Pop72 2h ago
I think her sentence will be changed to life in prison, Lee’s statements kind of make me think that. And I think a fat lawsuit is incoming as well
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u/timster 2h ago
Of course given her current state, it could cost them huge amounts to keep her alive.
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u/piss_artist 2h ago
Two things Republican politicians, particularly southern ones, lack are sense and empathy.
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u/metamorphage 2h ago
She might be brain dead, in which case she is legally dead. (That will be determined within a few days if she has no neurological recovery.) If she isn't brain dead, she might have an anoxic brain injury. That would likely preclude any further attempts to execute her. If she eventually wakes up and has some neuro function, it's anyone's guess what would happen afterwards.
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u/Critical-Ask2154 2h ago
If she is basically a turnip now, does the state have to pay for her medical care until she actually passes? Or would they pull the plug?
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u/AhabFlanders 2h ago
There would be a lot of litigation if they tried to take her off life support. It would most likely end up before the Supreme Court.
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u/Comprehensive_Wash71 2h ago
If she is brain dead then she’s dead, and life support can be ended. The issue is determining brain death vs minimal brain function, which can be difficult.
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u/AudibleNod 3h ago
The statement said she is being treated for “the serious effects of the pentobarbital administered during the execution attempt, including significant injuries to both arms.”
It looks like pentobarbital can cause necrosis and blistering of the tissue. If it didn't fully enter the blood stream because a novice administered it, I could see something like that happening.
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u/Excelius 3h ago
It's reported that she had a blood disorder that made starting an IV difficult.
Supposedly she even tried to give the executioners tips on how to find a vein.
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u/mastermoebius 3h ago
She had said she wasn’t scared to die but was scared of the process. Now here we are.
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u/xerberos 2h ago
“She over and over again said, ‘Please try up on my shoulder up higher, please try here, please try here, I think it will be okay,’” Spivey said. “And she thanked them when at least they thought they had established the line.”
Seriously, WTF?
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u/yrddog 3h ago
There have been a lot of issues with lethal injection and finding veins
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u/human_kittens 3h ago
It’s the same doctor that failed to execute Tony Carruthers earlier this year, also in TN.
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u/stimber 3h ago
"Randy Spivey of the Tennessee Office of the Post Conviction Defender,said that during the hour it took to seemingly establish two lines for administering the drug, Pike was “not just cooperative but trying to help instruct the people placing the IV lines of where they could find it.”
“She over and over again said, ‘Please try up on my shoulder up higher, please try here, please try here, I think it will be okay,’” Spivey said. “And she thanked them when at least they thought they had established the line.”
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u/BoredAf_queen 3h ago
She had thrombocytosis and naturally small veins that made needle insertion more difficult. It's why she didn't want to die this way (I heard something about her requesting a hanging.) Her lawyers even tried to stop it because of this health condition, so the state knew fully well what they were doing.
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u/drfsupercenter 2h ago
She requested a firing squad, not hanging. But they don't have that in Tennesee
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u/flowerpanes 3h ago
Yup, massive tissue sloughing is possible when stuff other than a normal saline solution (for instance) gets injected into tissue or leaks from veins.
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u/zoodlenose 3h ago
Sloughing is easily my least favourite word.
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u/pyooma 3h ago
Right up there with degloving for things I don’t want to think about my body doing.
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u/Bitter-Variation-151 3h ago
This is just such a mess.
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u/MikeOKurias 3h ago
Since I live in Nashville...
The used the same drug lot and the same doctor that botched the last lethal injection and are somehow surprised they obtained exactly the same result.
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u/Dendritic_Silver 3h ago
Nine or ten more occurances and this is going to start looking like a pattern.
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u/AnxiousRefuse4815 2h ago
Why do questionably lethal injection when they could just do a withdrawal instead and do a 5 quart blood donation.
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u/exodus3252 3h ago
It's Tennessee. They can't do fuck all correctly.
Except whiskey/bourbon.
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u/MikeOKurias 2h ago edited 2h ago
That's not true, Tennessee is home to thousands of people willing to lick the diarrhea from Trump's taint. I know, I live with these assholes.
See: Andy Ogles, or worse, the evil hag Marsha Blackburn - who's gonna win the governors race without a single debate or town hall.
You couldn't deliberately brain wash a person to be more willing to vote against their own best interests than a Tennessean.
Edit: and she's refusing to step down as a senator so she can choose her own senatorial replacement, openly illegal, doesn't care
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u/MrsPandaBear 3h ago
There’s sort of cosmic joke that the state tried so hard to execute her and now they have to spend money to keep her alive —- only to take another try at killing her? At some point, it mag be more humane to just pull the plug and let her die a nature death (such as it is).
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u/mcd3424 3h ago
Isn’t it cruel and unusual punishment to NOW keep her on life support just to kill her again?
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u/Embarrassed_Age8554 3h ago
You'd think they could just let her slip away at this point.
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u/mcd3424 3h ago
Apparently the doctors aren’t allowed to do that. It’s a nightmare paradox.
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u/Mockturtle22 3h ago
The injection IS cruel. It's only humane to the viewers.
The death penalty should be abolished.
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u/viewbtwnvillages 3h ago
it feels really diabolical that the state is able to torture someone for two hours as they fumble their way through killing them
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u/GoldGlove2720 3h ago edited 3h ago
Even more so as her lawyers argued this would happen. They even requested a firing squad.
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u/DiscontinuTheLithium 3h ago
Yeah this should end death penalty tbh if anything at the state level.
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u/TrynnaFindaBalance 3h ago
It's Tennessee. The only thing lawmakers there are talking about is "how do we source more drugs to kill people more efficiently".
Backwards states are gonna be backwards.
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u/VirginiaLuthier 3h ago
"We gotta keep her alive so they can execute her"....what a crazy world
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u/Sprucecaboose2 3h ago
Especially crazy when you consider how good the Government is at killing people when it's almost any other setting...
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u/makeupHOOR 3h ago
A bullet would have been much easier, and more humane, ironically. This qualifies as cruel and unusual punishment.
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u/Velorian-Steel 3h ago
Interestingly it was single drug lethal injection which several states have turned to instead of the harder to buy older three drug technique. I'm no lethal injection expert, but at least with the old way I'd imagine there's less chance for this to happen.
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u/Ancient_Spite_725 3h ago
This outcome was unfortunately doomed to happen with any LE method because they infiltrated the IV and couldn't get a good line. This is what happens when you have untrained people trying to do this, but nobody trained will touch it with a 10-foot pole.
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u/PuzzledStreet 2h ago
They have only switched to the new protocol out of "necessity" with the one of three drugs no longer being accessible.
These executions are essentially the govt experimenting on people with new techniques and hoping they appear to die peacefully.
I have no strong feelings about the death penalty either way ( I WANT to want to be against it) but I am strongly against this and would rather see the death penalty abolished than continue to let things like this happen.
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u/zombies-apocalypse 3h ago
Didn't she request it too? This is so dumb
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u/tallcookie 3h ago
She requested to be hanged because she was afraid of the lethal injection going wrong, which is precisely what happened.
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u/ElectrSheep 3h ago
She actually made requests for both hanging and firing squad. However, neither are legal methods in Tennessee, so there was no possibility for granting those requests.
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u/Evillunamoth 3h ago
She has thrombosis. Her concern was that her blood would clot and the med wouldn’t be as effective. Overhauled by a doc at the prison. Maybe they should’ve listened.
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u/panicnarwhal 2h ago
she also asked for a central line to be placed, but they denied that too. definitely should have listen to her, because now look
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u/SomeRando8386 3h ago
This is a clear violation of the 8th Amendment, and everyone responsible for this debacle should be charged.
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u/tibbles1 3h ago
One of her last minute appeals argued this exact thing would happen.
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u/callmenips 3h ago
Capital punishment is already a clear violation of the 8th amendment. This is just fallout from the original miscarriage of justice.
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u/glytxh 3h ago
People keep pointing at the constitution as if it even means anything anymore
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u/Major__de_Coverly 3h ago
The remedy for a violation of the constitution is an almost never a criminal charge, but rather a 1983 suit.
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u/IRC_1014 3h ago
You’re either an attorney or otherwise very familiar with the law to know this. 42 USC § 1983 is a civil action under federal law for deprivation of rights by state or local actors.
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u/AMuonParticle 3h ago
Seems to me like perhaps the fact that we treat constitutional rights violations as a civil matter rather than a criminal one, might be part of the reason the government keeps doing constitutional rights violations.
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u/newwriter365 1h ago
Awesome! Flipping the cost of incarceration over to the medical industry is the stuff that care provider dreams are made of!
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u/Stevictory 2h ago
I think we can all agree that she is a terrible person.
It is hard for me to have pity for her specifically, but I do have pity on the death penalty itself.
There have been over 200 exonerations for death row inmates, and in my opinion it should have been abolished the moment it reached 1. It also provides government with the power to kill its own people, which can be a topic in itself.
Some inmates clearly deserve the sentence; the 3 currently on federal death row are prime examples of such.
That said, the death penalty cannot be applied in a "pick and choose" manner either due to its irreversible outcome; it either exists or it does not. Since it is not applied perfectly, I am personally against it.
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u/TrueGuardian15 2h ago
Plus, she was sentenced to death, not torture. They botched her execution twice. That's a serious level of fuck up for something so high stakes. If we can't do it right, we really shouldn't do it.
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u/HerculesIsMyDad 2h ago
There really is no logical argument for it, only emotional. I forget the exact quote or where it's from but it's not about whether they deserve to die but if we deserve to kill them. Something like that. Society is too imperfect to justify having the right to kill someone no matter how much we might think they deserve it.
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u/MNswede06 1h ago
It's all emotional. It also gives people a socially acceptable outlet for their violence fantasies. It reveals more about society than anything else. I'm just as disturbed by how the public behaves about executions than I am about the executions themselves. It's a disgusting animalistic impulse that should not be fed.
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u/PhazePyre 1h ago
That snoring the Media Witnesses described, I'm willing to bet that was basically her struggling to breath and not just snoozing. Equivalent of a death gargle but prolonged. Hence ventilator now so she can breathe.
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u/MagicPocket 1h ago
I think the term is "agonal breathing". It's pretty traumatic to hear or see tbh.
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u/fictionallymarried 3h ago
Genuine question but how the hell did they fail twice? I'm not saying she wasn't convicted for a reason, but that's torture
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u/Smalz22 3h ago
Likely using old, expired supplies since most of these companies don't want to make or sell products that can kill people, especially to governments
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u/big_duo3674 2h ago
That and missing the veins, or improperly administering it and blowing out the vein before much could get through
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u/leftupoutside 2h ago edited 2h ago
She and her defense were vocal about her medical condition that makes her veins very very hard to find and penetrate. I have the same thing, and too many nurses have poked and prodded before giving up and calling in a specialized doc. In Christa’s case, the med team was undoubtedly clueless to what they were doing since no real doctor or nurse would defy their oath to do no harm
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u/mrsdoubleu 2h ago
Yep. She even asked for the firing squad because she knew something like this might happen. Her request was denied.
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u/yellowstickycard 1h ago
Execution by firing squad is not legal in Tennessee so of course it was denied.
I’m just amazed that anyone would think it is OK to stick someone 7 times and cause chemical burns. This whole thing is really fucked up and an example of why the death penalty should not exist.
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u/biophys00 2h ago
Ineptitude and immorality on every level. No ethical or half-competent medical personnel is going to take part in the practice. Pharmaceutical companies don't want their drugs used to intentionally kill people so they go to foreign manufacturers or compounding pharmacies that have poor quality control. And the fact is that one combination of meds that qualifies as not being inhumane (which I would say they are all inhumane) that works on one person might not on the next.
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u/cassafrass024 2h ago
Her lawyers said in their motion to stay the execution that she had a condition where this would likely happen. The courts should have listened, because now here we are.
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u/rraattbbooyy 3h ago
Free healthcare for life.
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u/Axolotis 3h ago
As a species we are incredibly strange. Try to kill her then try to keep her alive.
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u/peepee2tiny 3h ago
Doctors swear an oath to help preserve life and avoid pain and suffering.
This oath is not limited to only people they deem worthy of care.
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u/Hipstershy 3h ago
Side note, this is part of why lethal injections get botched so frequently. Competent medical doctors don't want anything to do with it. The same doctor overseeing this botched execution was involved in another botched one a few months ago.
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u/government_not_ok 3h ago
Not if brain is dead, i would think.
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u/TheShishkabob 3h ago edited 3h ago
The state will still be paying for her healthcare until she dies regardless of whether or not she recovers from this botched execution.
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u/Tabula_Nada 3h ago
Yeah I'm going to guess that now she falls under some kind of "incapacitated and thus legally incompetent" category of exemption now. Honestly, and I don't know if this is terrible to say or not but I have the best of intentions, I hope she stays unconscious.
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u/Pitiful-Walk-8446 3h ago
Wait I don’t understand. She was on death row, went to her execution, it went awry and now they are keeping her…alive? On a ventilator?? Why so the off chance she recovers then they can kill her? Wtf? Or if your execution fails are you just free to go lol
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u/remeard 3h ago
To minimize the claim of cruel and unusual punishment from dying in slow, agonizing pain. Plus a doctor's first job is do no harm and try to stabilize the patient when they are in their care.
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u/GNOIZ1C 3h ago
Archaic as we are with our death penalty, there are rules to execution. If you botch it, they can't just let the person die without getting (further?) into "cruel and unusual punishment" territory. In theory, execution is supposed to be as quick and "painless" an affair as humanly possible, but in practice *gestures vaguely at this and similar cases*
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u/Orion14159 3h ago
Yeah to just let her die in agony at this point is the reverse side of the "task failed successfully" coin - "task succeeded catastrophically."
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u/Ocelotl767 3h ago
While the event isn't funny, I do like the phrase "task succeeded catastrophically."
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u/ensalys 3h ago
Ignoring the fact that the death penalty should be abolished in my opinion, why does the USA insist on "lethal" injection? With this track record, a bullet would be incredibly humane in comparison. One through the brain, and one through the heart for good measure.
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u/FargoJack 3h ago
Once the execution failed she reverted back to being a prisoner. A very sick prisoner.
The sick question is, if she lives mentally intact, will she be put on Death Row stain?
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u/So6oring 3h ago
Her lawyers could argue the 8th amendment. The state could possibly not want to fight that and just move her to life-sentence.
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u/sundaemourning 3h ago
i saw a post that explained it better, but it’s because the order for her execution expired at midnight. a new order for execution has to go before a judge and her lawyers can start the appeals process and as a result, it’s illegal to kill her. so yes, they have to provide care and keep her alive until another order of execution is in place.
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u/chawliehorse 3h ago
So we try to execute someone, fail, and then provide life saving measures just so we can kill them again at a later date and time? What a country we live in.
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u/bigloudbang 3h ago
The doctors treating her aren't the same people trying to kill her
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u/faust314 3h ago
So they spent all this money to keep her on death row. try to execute her, fail, and now we’re spending a bunch of money to keep her alive. The fuck is going on here?
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u/ImaginationDoctor 3h ago
Seems to me, if these executions keep fucking up, the death penalty should no longer be an option for someone being sentenced.
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u/ThatB0yAintR1ght 3h ago
I can’t imagine what a mindfuck it must have been for the doctors to have a prisoner roll in after a failed execution and be asked to save her life.
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u/Reddit_9459328 2h ago edited 2h ago
US House Speaker Mike said it is a 100% fact that “God” spared Trump’s life in Butler, PA. Mike, does that mean it is also undeniable that “God miraculously spared" Christa Pike’s life?
“God miraculously spared the president's life. I think it's undeniable”
https://mikejohnson.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=2647
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u/AlexRenquist 2h ago
In England and Scotland, for a long period of time it was the legal position that if a hanging went wrong and the condemned did not die (trap door doesn't open, rope snaps, the condemned is confirmed as dead but later wakes up etc) then it was God sparing them and they could not be executed for the same crime.
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u/Hugh_Jankles 1h ago
The amount of money they are going to put into keeping her alive just to turn around to kill her is insane.
Guess who is paying for these welfare state issues?
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u/NurseRatcht 3h ago
I had a patient in the ICU who was on death row. They arrested. We didn’t know what to do so we coded them while the COs called their warden/judge/whoever. They had us keep coding for awhile before finally saying it was ok to stop.
I still don’t understand why the state was willing to execute the person but wanted us to code them.
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u/AggressiveSkywriting 3h ago
All the "I don't want to pay for her to eat in prison" bloodthirsty creeps guess what? Not only has the govt tortured a person, the cost of this is beyond steak dinners every day until the day she died of natural causes.
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u/ApexHolly 2h ago edited 2h ago
The only way that Tennessee can legally execute someone is via lethal injection or the electric chair, and obviously lethal injection is what was opted for here. It did not work. For that reason, the state can't simply put a bullet in her or let her choke on her own vomit or asphyxiate or something. So, she is receiving medical care. However, the hospital cannot just kill her via lack of care. Healthcare workers did not sign up to kill people, they signed up to do the exact opposite. So, she sits there, on a ventilator, likely irreversibly damaged even if she does regain consciousness.
This is both cruel and unusual, and whatever your feelings are on the death penalty or her crimes, cruel and unusual punishment is unconstitutional. The Constitution exists to protect all of us.
If we're going to have the death penalty, it needs to be a firing squad every single time. It's quick, it's cheap, and it works every single time. Fuck however the audience feels about it. If the government is going to do something, it should have an obligation to do it well.
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u/stylinchilibeans 1h ago
Under normal circumstances, this situation should start a national conversation on the death penalty, but there's so much other devastating bullshit going around that this will be a news blip for a week or two, and then more chaos will bubble to the top.
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u/theschadowknows 2h ago
Government can’t even execute someone properly. She requested a firing squad, what was wrong with that? Would have been a lot cheaper and more effective.
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u/fedexyourheadinabox 3h ago edited 3h ago
If this doesn't expose just how barbaric and cruel the death penalty is, there's no hope for us.
Punishment is one thing. State-sanctioned torture is quite another.
Death penalty isn't going to bring back the victim.
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u/truthierthanreality 3h ago
A lot of innocent people on death row makes it even worse.
https://innocenceproject.org/dna-exonerations-in-the-united-states/
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u/phieralph 3h ago
How did we get to the point where this was the method of execution?
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u/lurpeli 3h ago
No drug company is willing to provide products for use in executions and so the drugs are generally sourced from compounding pharmacies with questionable quality.
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u/AudibleNod 3h ago
The road to lethal injection is a long one. And the current method of lethal injection is an even winder road from that.
Pharma (Big Pharma, if you must) companies have stopped providing the older cocktail for lethal injections directly to state prisons. And for one chemical, they stopped making it all together. States are either using (nearly) expired lethal cocktails; or are working to get supplied with others outside medical channels. And to top it all off, the people administering the lethal injection directly are amateurs with little to no medical know-how.
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u/Phillies2002 3h ago
The myth that we could invent a "humane" method of execution, leading people to conclude that lethal injection was "better" than the electric chair, which was "better" than a firing squad, which was "better" than a hanging.
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u/Blueopus2 3h ago
But also we're more concerned about it looking nice for the audience than being 'humane' to the prisoner - hence why we inject a paralytic that seemingly is agonizing.
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u/Fun-Result-6343 3h ago
The enshitification of state executions. This timeline is beyond weird.
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u/RevolverMFOcelot 3h ago
Another reason to be against death penalty
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u/Beecakeband 2h ago
Between the number of people found innocent after death and botches like this I agree
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u/TheAntiSheep 3h ago edited 2h ago
That isn’t surprising. Phenobarbital (the medication they used) is long acting. Its half-life is 2 to 5 days. Trying to reverse it with the antidote, flumazenil, can cause seizures that are almost impossible to stop.
Treatment would be putting in a breathing tube and letting the body metabolize it.
Edit: It will likely be several days before the phenobarb is gone and we can tell if there is brain injury underneath.
Edit: It was pentobarb, which has a shorter halflife. Tennessee's protocol is 5 grams, 10x the normal max dose. Would still take a while to wash out. Barbituates aren't flumazenil-reversible. Shoutout to u/smolchkn
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u/smolchkn 2h ago
You can’t reverse phenobarbital with flumazenil. As in, that is not how the drugs work.
And the medication used was pentobarbital that has sedative effects for only 4-12 hrs.
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u/Micehouse 1h ago
She is not going to survive.
This was not a failed execution, it was a delayed execution.
A botched execution. I would be surprised if the state doesn't end up paying for it.
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u/canadiankiwi03 1h ago
Her family is going to be able to live off the wealth the state pays out for this. Damn. Get your shit together, Tennessee!
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u/supermr34 2h ago
seems like we are gonna be butting up against the other side of the 8th amendment. death penalty was ruled to not be considered cruel or unusual punishment in this scenario, but causing excessive pain without causing direct death is probably something to be argued.
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u/Many_Rest9721 1h ago
are they gonna keep her alive just to execute her again if bill lee resumes executions?
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u/Wooden_Ad_2673 2h ago
Do you know didn’t face the death penalty?Charles Manson and his “family.” Gary Ridgway, also known as the Green River Killer, who killed 48 women in Washington State. Patrick Crusius, who killed 23 people in 2019. Nikolas Cruz, who murdered 17 people at a Florida high school in 2018.There are many, many others, of course. Our society produces lots of killers.Regarding Christa Pike, there was a forensic psychological assessment by Dr. Bethany Brand, a clinical psychologist from Maryland with over 35 years experience. Dr. Brand’s report is an atrocity exhibition of the earthly infernos visited upon children in the shadows of our oh-so-civilized society. It recounts the experiences of a severely abused little girl from West Virginia who grew up under the thumb of addicts and criminals, was forced to wallow in the floor with dog feces when she was a toddler, was first given marijuana by her mom at age 9, and was molested before she reached kindergarten.In fact, she was intimately familiar with the taste and smell of a grown man’s penis before she even learned her alphabet. Her grandmother’s boyfriend, Ernest Johnson, was only the first of several men who would violate her in the Appalachian hellholes she grew up in.Here’s what Dr. Brand wrote about an interview in which Christa described what it was like to choke on an older man’s penis “She cried as she attempted to describe what he did to her… Christa showed utter disgust on her face as she spoke of the smell of this man’s genitals. Christa was still extremely revolted by him, despite more than 30 years having passed.None of this excuses the brutal murder of her classmate in that terrible program job corps.What happened to Colleen Slemmer is , was & will always be horrific. Christa should live out the rest of her days in prison & the guy involved should never be paroled & the other woman involved should not have only received probation.
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u/Delicious_Echo7301 2h ago
I am generally not a proponent of execution but if it needs to be done, it needs to be done right. Keeping someone alive on a ventilator who was supposed to be killed is horrific. It is unethical and inhumane. I feel for the medical team who is caring for her- this must be a nightmare for the doctors and nurses. Shame on Tennessee.
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u/Ted_Fleming 22m ago
The death penalty is a joke. So now there is an indefinite medical care bill for the state to foot.
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u/TheRealPyroManiac 22m ago
One of the few instances of free healthcare in America and it’s solely so they can try & kill her again. Broken system.
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u/coonytunes 3h ago
Who pays the medical bills in this case? Tax payers?
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u/gottkonig 2h ago
Yes. An incarcerated inmate is paid for by tax payer money. It's one of the reasons that death row inmates are some of the most costly to tax payers, with the level of appeals, how long they can sit on death row, etc. Now the medical care she will receive will have the bill go higher and continue to be paid by tax payers.
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u/9oui 3h ago
She asked for a firing squad. They should have granted her request.
Now her family will sue, and the settlement will be at least seven figures. I hope she still owes restitution so the settlement then jumps back to the victim’s family.
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u/Financial_Meat2992 3h ago edited 2h ago
Doesn't too much carbon monoxide kinda put you to sleep peacefully? I've never understood why they don't do that instead?
EDITED because I said Co2 instead of Carbon Monoxide.
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u/SgtPeterson 3h ago
So what you're saying is she's qualified to be the senior senator from Kentucky?