Not-so-lethal injection
The attempted (and failed) execution of Christa Pike is grisly and extremely disturbing on almost every level. It starts with the 1995 murder itself, segues into the long delay before carrying out the sentence, and then the failure of the lethal injections to work.
Something is very rotten in the state of Tennessee:
Christa Pike was in critical condition Thursday and receiving “lifesaving care” at a hospital, her lawyers said, a day after a failed attempt to execute her pushed Tennessee’s governor to halt further executions this year and order an independent review.
Pike, who was sentenced to death for a 1995 murder, was taken to a hospital Wednesday night after surviving a double dose of the drug Tennessee uses to execute prisoners.
“We don’t have a sense of her prognosis or much update on her health at the moment,” attorney Randy Spivey said during a news conference. “But we know she is alive right now.”
The failed execution, which one death penalty expert described as unprecedented, led Republican Gov. Bill Lee to order a review, calling what happened “deeply disturbing” and indefinitely postponing Pike’s execution and another one that had been scheduled for this year. It also reignited the debate over the state’s execution procedures, including its single-drug lethal injections.
A horror show.
How stupid and awful. My limited understanding is that the classic lethal injection uses two drugs or compounds. The first is a major tranquilizer/sedative type, so that if the second lethal one would have caused pain by itself, it won’t. Why insist on a single compound?
I may be wrong, but I think she should be released from confinement. Someone Upstairs seems to be looking out for her.
I have mixed feelings on the death penalty itself. But IMO if we’re going to do it, then a bullet in the head would be cheaper, quicker, and a lot more certain than the methods currently in use.
Of course opponents of the death penalty probably don’t regard those things as desirable.
Death penalty opponents have done everything possible to make it difficult or impossible to execute a person efficiently and effectively, then use disasters like this to demonstrate that it’s not a good thing to do.
2 things are needed to execute a person:
1. a good IV.
2. drug or drugs.
With modern technology found in any medium sized ER, inability to start an IV occurs maybe 1 in 1000 cases.
Pentobarbital in adequate dose will kill a person 100% of the time, but it will take many minutes to hours for electrical activity in the heart, as detected on an ordinary EKG, to cease. To do the deed quickly, use the PB to render the person unconscious and no longer breathing, then give KCl to stop the heart. KCl hurts a lot, but not the unconscious person.
Is it true that the execution team was all female? Maybe sabotage? Unlikely, but no more unlikely than being unable to kill a person with ordinary medical and nursing skills.
Pike requested, and was granted, an all-female execution team. They were new to the protocol and obviously did a poor job.
https://www.breitbart.com/crime/2026/10/01/christa-pike-granted-all-female-execution-team-botched-lethal-injection/
I favor facing the fact that an execution is killing a human being who has been judged with due process in courts of law to be guilty of a heinous crime. Hanging and firing squads work well and are fast.
Planned Perp… hood following conviction beyond a reasonable doubt of committing multiple acts of planned or premeditated personhood to relieve “burdens” of state and mind. Send her to Planned Parenthood umbrella corporation that has demonstrated a better but not perfect performance of aborting human lives in mass, an ethical Choice with an empathetic and Democratic consensus.
Every time one is tempted to have sympathy for the convicted (and admitted) murderess Pike and her current fate, one should read in detail about the crime she committed, then imagine being the victim of her homicidal actions. That should put an end to any sympathetic emotions. For my part, I hope she came to a saving faith in Jesus and repented before execution, but her execution was and remains appropriate and justified. Killing another human being is always nasty work, no matter how it’s done. But consider that we have entered an age where killing a near-term baby by his or her mother is deemed an essential part of “reproductive care,” and dispatching elderly or ill human beings via euthanasia is called “mercy killing” then reconcile that with the outpouring (or perhaps outtrickling) of sympathy over this wretch or her analogue, Clancy. Makes me wonder if there is much hope left for modern “civilization.”
She requested an all female execution team? Maybe she and her handlers thought they might be on Team Clancy and purposely screw this up to help another female murderer go free? Because they next play is to set her free, right?
Why not just replace the veterinary procedure with a firing squad?
Ms. Pike deserves death for her crime, but has lived 31 years after she took her victim’s life. A torturous execution attempt is some payback for her torturing her victim, but Ms. Pike still deserves to be executed.
The doctor performing Pike’s “execution” also bungled one in May, resulting in a one-year reprieve for the murderer, granted by Tennessee Governor Bill Lee, who has suspended executions in that state.
https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-16178549/Christa-Pike-botched-execution-Mark-Fowler-Tennessee.html
We should have jobbed it out to Canada ,they got skills.
Rule 303.
Steve (Retired/recovering lawyer) (3:45 pm) suggests that “one should read in detail about the crime she committed, then imagine being the victim of her homicidal actions. That should put an end to any sympathetic emotions.”
I have “read in detail” and I have *no* sympathetic emotions vis-a-vis Christa Pike.
Unlike many of our dear demonic and ghoulish left-leaners, I do not in any way celebrate what’s been happening to Christa Pike. I *can* not.
But I will confess to feeling at least a hint of schadenfreude over the situation, and I’d sleep comfortably at night if other sadistic murderers and kindred vermin might experience something similar to what Christa Pike has been privileged to experience.
Possiby it’s a lack of trust on my part that these specimens of not-very-human debris may ever experience the divine retribution that they richly deserve.
I suspect “improprieties” in the handling of the execution drugs. (ya think???)
Idaho got rid of lethal injection for a similar reason. Firing squad is now the primary execution method. Quick, cheap, effective.
Althouse had a post noting that there are steps a doomed prisoner can take to make it more likely that the lethal injection will fail, such as dehydration, which makes the veins not function so well. But doctors I know confirm that a barbiturate by itself is not necessarily deadly even if the veins are good. It needs to be accompanied by something with potassium that will stop the heart.
Jimmy is medically correct . A large dose of intravenous potassium will do the job, but the veins must stand out when the arm is tourquetted.
Jimmy is medically correct . A large dose of intravenous potassium will do the job of cardiac arrest, but the veins must stand out when the arm is tourquetted to receive the KCl. If the veins are crummy. it’s likely they have been sacrificed/obliterated due to multiple prior IV illicit drug administrations.
One notes that she attempted another murder while in prison.
Odd that Canada hasn’t had cases like that in MAiD.
Don’t have a moral problem with capital punishment.
But I don’t trust prosecutors in a high-profile case..
Ms. Pike requested, and was granted, female executioners.
Why should she have a say in her method of execution? I understand picking a last meal, but this is the tail wagging the dog.
= = = = = = = =
The legal profession, including the judiciary, is a cancer on our country!
This farce is one of the reasons I oppose the death penalty. It’s not about sympathy for the guilty. It’s about:
1. It’s irreversible if it turns out the convict was actually innocent. Even without the manifest incompetence and malfeasance that we’ve seen infect our institutions and processes, humans are fallible and mistakes can be made.
Now consider the ‘justice’ system that we’ve seen in actual operation over the last few years…
2. The way we do it is farcical. The execution fails so now we struggle to keep her alive. If a convict on death row has a heart attack a few hours before the time, he or she is rushed the infirmary.
There are other reasons, but those are my big ones, and for me, they are enough.
That said, the death penalty is absolutely constitutional, the Fifth Amendment specifically authorizes it. So I do not support those groups trying to get the SCOTUS to ban it.
I am having such a mix of reactions.
Echoing much of what has been posted.
Yeah, my VET could do better. I mean, really? I have had numerous 100 lb GSDs sent across the ‘Rainbow Bridge’. Same vet for 30 years. One, a 14.5 year old riddled with cancer had to have the procedure repeated* – his heart was that strong – so they couldn’t get it done with this woman?
Why am I supposed to feel sorry for this woman? Did she not do worse to her victim? I should care, why?
I can’t believe the Canadians are better at this.
Then I get an attack of the ‘Auntie Em’s.
‘Elmira Gulch, for 30 years I’ve been wanting to tell you just what I think of you and now, well, being a Christian woman, I can’t!’
Dang.
I understand those who believe in the death penalty.
But repentance however unlikely is always possible and well, being a Christian woman, I can’t interfere with that.
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2026/10/allison-feldmans-case.php
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It’s agreeable that the perpetrator Ian Mitchum has now been convicted (though his sentence is still up in the air). From the time he was identified and arrested to the time a conviction was secured elapsed eight years, which is another indicator of how crappy is Arizona’s court system. (Remember the Jodi Arias case?). Maybe some day Arizona build a court system which has some purpose other than to be a forum where lawyers play footsie with each other.
Call me naive but there is no reason that a lethal injection should fail. If you are going to do lethal injections, then put enough drugs in the injection to make sure it works.
You never hear about botched assisted suicides in Switzerland. One would think that the officials in TN would emulate what is done there.
But obviously this would be asking too much.
Anyway, I don’t feel sorry one bit for Christa Pike; check out the barbarity of her crime. They should have just given as many doses of whatever it was until she was dead.
Christa Pike. The Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution states:
Justice American style…
OK. Who’s up next? Jamaal Howard:
Texas death row inmate just hours from receiving same lethal injection Christa Pike did makes eerie prediction about his fate if execution also fails
OK, Sidekick, what do you have to add?
Grok:
Justice American style…served over 30 years in prison, and then this?! The woman should be set free, as of yesterday…
And the horse or hearse you rode in on Karmi.
Yeah she shouldnt murdered that woman full stop they shouldnt have pug her on thr respirator after words now because of one incompetent tech the victim will be ignored