Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee announced a stay of all executions in the state, including Christa Pike's, one day after her execution failed. The last execution scheduled for this year will not take place.
Pike was set to be executed Wednesday night for the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer. Lee spoke Thursday, in remarks carried live by LiveNOW from FOX.
I'm highly disappointed, along with Tennesseans, about what happened last night.
Lee said he "immediately took action to call for a thorough and comprehensive and third party review and investigation into the protocol." He said the investigation will take time, and that is why the final scheduled execution of the year is off. Asked what happens to Pike, he answered: "Well, there will be a stay of hers and all executions."
He did not back away from the death penalty. Lee said Tennesseans have decided it is the appropriate sentence for the most heinous crimes. He said those sentences must be carried out in a manner that is "not only legal, and constitutional but effective. And that didn't happen."
According to Fox News, Pike received two syringes of lethal injection and stayed alive. Her attorneys and media witnesses say she could be heard snoring. The network reported that the drug, pentobarbital, typically causes death within 15 to 30 minutes. Witnesses were told to leave at 8:53 p.m. local time, and her attorney says Pike was still breathing. Media witnesses could hear but not see for part of the execution because a curtain was closed.
Pike's attorneys say she is being treated at a nearby hospital in critical condition and likely suffered a brain injury. They say her biggest fear was a prolonged, painful death. Her defense team said the electric chair is an option going forward, per Fox. CBS reports Pike spent more than 30 years on death row, and her lawyers had argued she should be spared because of untreated mental illness and a severe childhood.
Reporters pressed Lee on accountability. One noted that Corrections Commissioner Estrada had overseen botched executions in Arizona before Lee hired him. That was the reporter's characterization, not Lee's. Lee said that so far as is known, the Department of Correction followed exactly the protocol outlined, vetted and approved by the Attorney General's office. "That is all we know," he said.
Another reporter asked why he halted executions now and not after an earlier execution. Lee said: "Well, obviously because there is a question as to what happened. And what happened was not what is intended to happen."
Asked who bears responsibility, Lee said: "That will be determined by the investigation."