Tennessee's governor Bill Lee called off the execution of Christa Pike on Wednesday. The procedure failed, as Christa Pike survived the administration of 5mg of pentobarbital.
Top lawyers, doctors, and members of the faith community are now demanding a moratorium on the US death penalty. Sandra Babcock stated that the process is "unimaginably barbaric."
Babcock also urged Lee to commute Christa Pike’s death sentence to life imprisonment. Randy Spivey described the method as "cruel and torturous."
Christa Pike had originally been sentenced to death for the 1995 killing of Colleen Slemmer. The failed execution represented a violation of the constitutional prohibition on “cruel and unusual punishment.”
Bryan Stevenson noted that nearly a dozen botched executions in recent years should have suspended executions long before now. Stevenson further questioned governments, asking: “Do our governments which tolerate inequality, unreliability and bias deserve to kill?”
Tennessee experienced a failed execution on Wednesday night, marking the second such incident within five months. Alabama previously failed to execute two death row prisoners, Alan Miller and Kenneth Smith, because officials could not locate a vein.
Miller and Smith were subsequently killed by Alabama using nitrogen gas. A federal judge had previously blocked Alabama’s use of nitrogen gas for executions in June.
Helen Prejean described the process as: “This is the essence of cruelty. Take a conscious, imaginative human being, give her a date for her death, have her anticipate it over and over again, and then take her out and try and kill her. She was rendered defenceless as they deliberately attempted to kill her – what greater mental torture for a human being is there?” Joel Zivot claimed that lethal injections constitute an impersonation of a medical act.
Zivot also suggested that Pike likely possessed veins that were of poor quality, small in caliber, and difficult to find. The US last saw a moratorium on executions in 1972.
Last year saw 47 US executions across 12 states. In 1993, 80% of Americans supported the death penalty for convicted murderers.
Currently, 52% of Americans support the death penalty for convicted murderers.
