Christa Pike unconscious, on ventilator after botched execution: Lawyers

What the report says

Christa Pike, a Tennessee death-row prisoner, is unconscious, on a ventilator and being treated at a Nashville hospital after a halted execution attempt, according to a court filing cited by Al Jazeera and the Associated Press. Her lawyers said doctors are trying to remove pentobarbital from her system after the botched procedure at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville on Wednesday.

The filing described Pike as critically ill. It also said her arms were swollen, burned and blistered when she arrived at the hospital, and argued that problems with intravenous lines may have caused the drug to enter tissue instead of the bloodstream. The lawyers also alleged that prison staff used a backup set of syringes and gave another dose of pentobarbital. The filing was submitted as part of an emergency request seeking preservation of state records tied to the execution.

Pike was sentenced to death at age 18 after being convicted in the 1995 torture and murder of another young woman. She was the only woman on Tennessee’s death row and would have been the first woman executed in the state in more than 200 years. Her legal team is asking that her sentence be changed to life in prison, describing what happened as chemical torture. Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee has paused all executions for the rest of the year while the state investigates the incident.