Lawyers for Christa Pike say she was still alive Wednesday night after two syringes of lethal injection drugs.
The Hill reports that Pike's federal public defenders made the claim in a motion to the Tennessee Supreme Court. The motion, citing witnesses, says she survived doses of pentobarbital given at 8:26 p.m. local time. The New York Post, citing a lawyer, reports she was "snoring" after two lethal injections.
Lawyers for Christa Pike say she was still alive Wednesday night after two syringes of lethal injection drugs.
Developing, unverified: the survival claim comes from Pike's lawyers and witnesses cited in their filing. It is not confirmed by the state in the material we have. LiveNOW from FOX says an Associated Press headline, citing witnesses, reported that Tennessee was unable to carry out the execution by lethal injection.
Here is how the night got there. An appeals court had paused the execution to consider Pike's claim that childhood sexual abuse should factor into her punishment. The U.S. Supreme Court then vacated that stay, 6-3, according to NBC News correspondent Jesse Kirsch. CBS News reports the ruling came just before 6 p.m. local time.
The New York Post, citing The Tennessean, reports Pike was strapped to a gurney in the Nashville death chamber just before 7:30 p.m. CDT. A witness quoted on LiveNOW's feed described a curtain opening on Pike lying down, with an IV in her right arm.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. As NBC read it on air, the dissent says the Court granted "extraordinary relief solely to allow the State to execute Pike before litigation over her conviction has properly run its course." CBS reports the dissenters argued the ruling short-circuits the normal process and denies the lower court a chance to properly consider her pending challenges.
Pike is 50. She was 18 when she and her boyfriend killed 19-year-old classmate Colleen Slemmer in 1995. She does not deny the killing, according to NBC News. Her legal team points to evidence that she was raped multiple times as a child, endured molestation from toddlerhood, and that her mother drank heavily while pregnant with her. The team argues those facts bear on whether she deserves a death sentence.
Gov. Bill Lee denied clemency earlier this week, CBS reports. NBC says the execution would make Pike the first woman Tennessee has executed in over 200 years. CBS says Slemmer's mother, May Martinez, spent most of the day inside the prison.
The survival claim is now before the Tennessee Supreme Court. The material we have does not say how it ruled.