Christa Pike’s Lawyer Calls for Governor to Remove Death Sentence After Failed Execution

Christa Pike’s lawyer says his client has suffered serious punishment for the murder she carried out, and that Tennessee’s governor should take the possibility of another execution off the table after officials failed to end Pike’s life using two lethal injections in September.

“I think, at the very least, the governor should commute Ms. Pike’s death sentence to a life sentence,” Stephen Ferrell, the lawyer, said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Oct. 4.

“We don’t know what her physical state will be, but it is clear that she has endured a torturous attempt at executing her. And we had already asked that the governor commute her for many good reasons.”

He also said that the Tennessee Attorney General’s Office has so far not told Pike’s lawyers whether they intend to seek another execution date for Pike.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee did not return a request for comment sent to a spokesperson early Monday. State law lets a governor commute a death sentence to life in prison, or exonerate a person who has been found not to have committed the crime for which he or she was convicted.

Lee has paused all executions in Tennessee through the end of the year after Pike’s execution did not result in her death. He also said a third party would review what transpired.

The Tennessee Attorney General’s Office did not pick up the phone early Monday.

“The Governor has appropriately called for an investigation,” the office told The Epoch Times via email in a recent statement. “We need to know what happened.”

Pike, 50, was sentenced to death in 1996 for murdering Colleen Slemmer the previous year.

Pike became the first person to survive being injected with lethal doses of execution drugs after the execution failed on Sept. 30, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit that says it has no position on the death penalty “but is critical of problems in its application.”

Pike was taken to a nearby facility for medical care after surviving the execution. She is unconscious and on a ventilator, her lawyers have said.

Ferrell, the lawyer representing Pike, told CNN on Sunday that Pike was still on a ventilator and critically ill.

“We don’t really know the prognosis yet and may not know for several days,” he said.

The CNN host asked what justice would look like for Slemmer. Ferrell said that was hard to say.

“I can tell you what justice shouldn’t be for the victim’s family, and that’s this long, many years of back-and-forth for her, and to be brought here to witness an execution that doesn’t happen,” he said.

“Nothing that anyone can do will bring back Colleen Slemmer. Nothing that anyone can do will make this right for May Martinez, her mother. I can’t give any better solution than the fact that Christa has been and may very well continue to be severely punished, harshly punished, and maybe not overly so.

“But, certainly, this has been a serious punishment for a very serious and awful crime. I don’t think that attempting another execution is going to bring justice.”

Jacki Thrapp contributed to this report.