A Tennessee judge has scheduled a Wednesday morning status conference in the case of Christa Pike, a death row inmate who survived the state’s attempt to execute her last week and is now awake and speaking at a hospital.
Pike’s attorneys are seeking a court order requiring the Tennessee Department of Correction to preserve evidence from the Sept. 30 lethal injection attempt, including drug lot numbers, medical and execution records, and other information that could help determine what went wrong.
Chancery Court Judge I’Ashea Myles set the hearing as Pike’s lawyers press for access to evidence surrounding the failed execution.
The hearing comes as Pike, 50, remains hospitalized after Tennessee attempted to put her to death with two doses of pentobarbital for the 1995 murder of her classmate, Colleen Slemmer.
Her attorneys said Tuesday that Pike’s condition has unexpectedly improved.
“Against all odds, Christa Pike is conscious, speaking, and continues to receive critical medical care,” her lawyers said in a statement.
They said Pike suffered severe injuries to her arms during the lethal injection and remains handcuffed and shackled to her hospital bed.
“Her recovery is medically unprecedented,” the attorneys said. “Her prognosis remains unclear but, at a minimum, we expect a long recovery.”
The statement was the first public indication that Pike’s condition had improved since she was taken by ambulance from the Nashville prison where the execution was attempted.
The Tennessee Department of Correction said Tuesday that Pike remained hospitalized, but declined to provide additional information about her medical condition.
Her attorneys said they were grateful to first responders and hospital staff who treated Pike “like a human” and provided what they described as exceptional care.
Wednesday’s court hearing is expected to focus not on Pike’s guilt or death sentence, but on preserving evidence from the failed execution.
Her lawyers want the state to safeguard records and materials that could shed light on how the lethal drugs were administered, including the lot numbers of the pentobarbital used and other execution-related documentation.
The request could become significant as questions grow about how Tennessee’s execution protocol was carried out and why the lethal injection failed to kill Pike.
Pike was sentenced to death after being convicted of murdering Slemmer, a fellow student at a Job Corps program in Knoxville, in a 1995 beating and stabbing.
Tennessee had previously scheduled Pike’s execution for 2023, but it was postponed after a last-minute review found problems with the state’s lethal injection protocol.
The state ultimately proceeded with the execution attempt on Sept. 30.
According to Pike’s attorneys, the pentobarbital failed to produce the intended result, and her arms were left burned and blistered.
Now, as Pike remains alive and hospitalized, her lawyers are seeking to preserve evidence before records or other materials connected to the execution can be lost, altered or destroyed.
Wednesday’s status conference will give the court an opportunity to address those requests and determine how the legal fight over the failed execution will proceed.
Pike’s condition, however, remains uncertain. But the woman Tennessee intended to execute is alive, conscious and speaking, and her lawyers are asking a judge to ensure that evidence of what happened is preserved.
