So can the state try again?

Transcript

1. Tennessee says it followed every step of its own execution rules on Christa Pike.
2. She survived, and the rulebook says nothing about a prisoner who does.
3. In 1995, at 18, she and two others tortured and killed Colleen Slemmer, a classmate.
4. Pike was sentenced to death.
5. On 30 September, in Nashville, Tennessee tried to carry it out.
6. The rulebook is the state's execution protocol.
7. One drug, pentobarbital, in 2 full doses: Set A and Set B.
8. Set A goes into a vein, through an IV line.
9. A doctor checks.
10. If she isn't dead, Set B.
11. Her lawyers say it took at least 7 needles, and that she got both sets.
12. She kept breathing.
13. If the prisoner is still alive after Set B, the protocol doesn't say what to do.
14. At about 9:15 p.m., an ambulance came for her.
15. In January, her lawyers told a court her veins were hard to reach,
16. the drug could leak, and the protocol had no plan if she survived.
17. Before the execution, the state told the courts she was "highly unlikely" to survive,
18. and that it had no obligation to revive her.
19. A judge appointed by the state Supreme Court called her vein evidence speculation.
20. The Supreme Court agreed.
21. The prisons department said its drug "has consistently been effective".
22. Since May 2025, Tennessee has made 6 execution attempts under this protocol.
23. 4 ended in executions.
24. 1 was stopped before any drug was given.
25. And Christa Pike survived.
26. Why this one failed isn't established.
27. Her lawyers suspect the drug went into her arms instead of her veins.
28. The attorney general's office,
29. which approved the protocol, has hired an outside reviewer.
30. So can the state try again?
31. In 1946, Louisiana's electric chair failed to kill Willie Francis.
32. The Supreme Court let Louisiana try again, 5 to 4,
33. even if the current had gone through him.
34. In 2009, Ohio couldn't get an IV line into Romell Broom.
35. Ohio's top court let the state try again.
36. Under Ohio law, it said,
37. an execution begins when the drug enters the line, and his never did.
38. Christa Pike's lawyers say both sets went in.
39. A scholar of failed executions says
40. her survival puts the state in "unprecedented territory".
41. Colleen Slemmer's mother said, "I didn't get justice for my daughter."
42. Tennessee has paused executions.
43. On Thursday night, her lawyers said, she was unconscious, on a ventilator.
44. The state hasn't said whether it will try to execute her again,
45. and its rulebook has no answer.