Christa Pike seeks firing squad, not lethal injection: Inside US executions

What the report says

Tennessee is preparing to execute Christa Pike, the only woman on the state’s death row, after the US Supreme Court rejected a last-minute attempt to stop the punishment. Pike, 50, was convicted of the 1995 torture and killing of Colleen Slemmer in Knoxville when Pike was 18. Her execution is scheduled at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville, and Al Jazeera reported that she has sought a firing squad instead of lethal injection, according to a separate report cited in the article.

The case is notable because women make up only a tiny share of people executed in the US since capital punishment resumed in 1976. Al Jazeera said Tennessee has not executed a woman since 1820, and that Pike would be the first woman executed there in more than 200 years if the execution proceeds. The article also noted that Pike’s lawyers asked Governor Bill Lee to commute her sentence to life without parole, but that clemency was denied.

Her legal team argues that childhood abuse, neglect and mental-health issues make her execution unjust and that lethal injection could be especially distressing for her. They also raised concerns about vein access, while the state disputes that claim. In broader context, the article explains that execution methods remain contested across the US because courts require prisoners to propose a feasible alternative if they challenge a method as cruel. Tennessee permits lethal injection and electrocution, and in some cases allows prisoners to choose older methods depending on when the crime occurred.