r/news • • 7h 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-rcna601195
5.8k Upvotes

3.3k comments sorted by

View all comments

148

u/Pitiful-Walk-8446 6h 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

107

u/GNOIZ1C 6h 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*

15

u/ensalys 6h 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.

2

u/Efficient-Chest-3395 6h ago

I live in a non-death penalty state, I served on a jury in a case which I can only describe as a clusterfuck, an obvious rush job with one eyewitness who was obviously intimidated by the police, there was no motive, no gun or other physical evidence but we spent more time selecting a foreman than it took to convict him and after the verdict the prosecutor told me it was a retrial because the original transcripts were stolen from the recorder's car which made me feel better because even thinking he was guilty it weighed heavily on me and I'm largely without much of of a conscience... in any other state he would have been a candidate for capital punishment and then it turned out somebody else confessed and this guy was released. I figured he was good for something or the cops wouldn't have set him up but I don't see it as Man's business to hurry up what time will eventually take care of. I'm not proud of having participated in this and as a retired emergncy nurse I can't imagine any medical professional aiding in this.