After failed execution: Pike is said to be conscious again

dpa | After a failed execution attempt, the US American Christa Pike, who was sentenced to death, is conscious again and can speak, according to her lawyers. The 50-year-old will continue to be treated in intensive care. Her prognosis is still unclear, but a long recovery time is to be expected.

Pike suffered severe damage to his arms during the execution attempt, the lawyers said. Nevertheless, she was still handcuffed and shackled to the hospital bed.

Her recovery was “medically unprecedented,” the statement said. "She is the only known person to have survived a full-scale execution attempt in the United States. Christa is a survivor and will take her recovery day by day," the lawyers said. According to her lawyers, Pike had previously been unconscious and was being ventilated in a hospital in the Nashville area, Tennessee.

According to the authorities, the American woman was administered the two doses of the drug pentobarbital specified in the execution protocol last Wednesday evening. Yet she continued to live. Witnesses reported that they could hear her breathing heavily for a long time. One of her lawyers later even said that he could still hear Pike talking and singing after the first dose of medication. She was eventually taken by ambulance to a medical facility outside the prison.

Pike was sentenced to death in 1996 for the murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer. She was 18 years old at the time of the crime. Slemmer was tortured over a long period of time in 1995 in a remote area near Knoxville and ultimately killed. Pike's execution would have been the first of a woman in Tennessee in more than 200 years.

Just a few hours before the attempted execution, it was unclear whether the death penalty would even be carried out. A federal appeals court initially stopped the execution at short notice. Pike's lawyers wanted the courts to revisit the question of whether severe experiences of abuse and violence from her childhood and mental illness had been sufficiently taken into account in previous decisions on her death sentence.

The state of Tennessee then turned to the Supreme Court. The highest US court overturned the stay on the same day, clearing the way for the execution. The Supreme Court had already rejected another application by Pike against the enforcement the day before.

The exact cause of the failed execution remains unclear - and should be clarified by an independent investigation. Pike's lawyers reported significant problems with the placement of the vein access. One of her arms turned purple during the execution, and later there were blisters and burns at the puncture sites. The prison authority, however, stated that the execution protocol had been completely processed.

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, there is no known comparable modern U.S. case in which the intended execution drugs were administered and the prisoner still lived. The case has brought the debate that has been going on for years about the death penalty in the USA and in particular about the reliability of executions by lethal injection back into focus.

After the failed execution, Pike's lawyers called for her death sentence to be commuted to life imprisonment and announced further legal action. In their new statement, they reiterated their demand to Tennessee's Republican Governor, Bill Lee, that Pike should be imprisoned for life instead of the death penalty - without the possibility of early release.

Lee canceled the last execution scheduled for this year last week. Back in May, Tennessee had to stop the execution of another convicted felon after failing to establish the necessary intravenous lines.

It is unclear whether Tennessee will attempt to execute Pike again at a later date. The New York Times points out that her health will probably be a deciding factor. The US Supreme Court has banned the execution of people who cannot rationally understand the reason for this punishment, the newspaper notes.

Pike's lawyers announced a press conference for today. It is scheduled to take place following a hearing in a Nashville court beginning at 11 a.m. local time.