Tennessee prison chief resigns after inmate survives botched execution

Explainer

The head of Tennessee's prison system is resigning after the failed execution of death row inmate Christa Pike, who remains unconscious on a ventilator four days later.

Gov. Bill Lee announced Saturday that Department of Correction Commissioner Frank Strada will step down this month.

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Strada said in a statement that stepping aside "is in the best interests" of the state as an independent review is carried out to determine why Pike's execution failed Wednesday.

"We don’t know right now, and we may never know what sort of torture she endured during that process, where her consciousness was, what physical pain there was, what mental torture she went through," Pike's lawyer, Assistant Federal Defender Stephen Ferrell, told CNN.

What is Christa Pike's current condition?

Christa Pike has remained unconscious and on a ventilator at a hospital in the four days since her failed execution, and her prognosis might not be known for days more, Ferrell said Sunday.

She has been hospitalized under guard as doctors try to get the massive dose of the barbiturate pentobarbital out of her system.

When asked whether she ever regained consciousness after the execution attempt, Ferrell said on CNN's "State of the Union": "Not that I am aware of."

Pike's attorneys said in a court filing Friday that hospital staff were working to save her life and, as of late Thursday, were trying to clear the two doses of the drug.

Her lawyers said her arms were burned and blistered from the caustic drugs.

A spokeswoman for Pike's defense team said in a statement early Sunday that "we appreciate all respect for Christa’s rightful privacy."

Pike gave someone her medical power of attorney and that person is protecting her privacy, Ferrell said.

"I'm not sure what all they may have told that person," Ferrell said.

Pike's attorneys have not identified who is making her medical decisions.

What went wrong with the execution?

Tennessee prison officials gave Pike two doses of the lethal injection drug on Wednesday night.

Pike's attorneys said they believed problems with the IV lines caused the pentobarbital to flow into her body instead of her bloodstream.

"Apparently at no point did any member of the execution team realize that the IV lines were not correctly placed or that the veins had blown and that the pentobarbital was, in whole or in part, entering Ms. Pike's body," they wrote in the court filing.

This was the second time this year Tennessee has not been able to execute a prisoner who was seemingly moments away from death.

In May, Tennessee stopped the execution of Tony Carruthers after staff placed an IV into his right arm but couldn’t get a secondary IV line.

Pike's execution was delayed for more than eight hours Wednesday as the U.S. Supreme Court considered, and ultimately overturned, a federal appeals court ruling to halt her lethal injection.

Her attorneys asked a court Friday to order Tennessee prison officials to preserve any written records, communication, images or video from the execution.

What is being done in response?

Gov. Bill Lee has ordered an independent investigation into the state's capital punishment system conducted by former U.S. Attorney Ed Stanton.

Stanton also reviewed Tennessee's execution procedures after Lee called off a different execution in 2022 and found the state did not comply with its own lethal injection process.

The stunning failure has left both sides of the death penalty debate demanding answers.

"The state of Tennessee has got to start telling its people exactly what it is doing so that in the democratic process, the people of Tennessee can decide if that’s what they want to be done in their name," Ferrell told CNN.

Tennessee, like many other states with capital punishment, keeps many details about executions secret.

Prison officials and the Tennessee Attorney General's Office have said little since Pike was taken to the hospital.

Who is Christa Pike?

Christa Pike, now 50, was 18 when she and her boyfriend tortured and killed a classmate, Colleen Slemmer, in a jealous rage in 1995.

She became one of the youngest women to be sent to death row.

Pike didn’t deny she killed 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in 1995. The two were classmates at Knoxville Job Corps.

Prosecutors said Pike feared Slemmer was a romantic rival and lured her to a secluded area where she and her boyfriend slashed Slemmer with a box cutter and beat her with a large chunk of asphalt.

The case got widespread attention because of the brutality of the killing, the ages of the people involved and because a satanic symbol was carved into the victim’s body.

It is unclear what will happen in her death penalty case. Pike's lawyers have asked the governor to commute her punishment to a life sentence.

"If she recovers, she may not fully recover. And there may be issues about her competence," Ferrell said.

With files from CityNews, CBC News and Audacy