Two doses of a lethal injection drug have failed to kill Christa Gail Pike, a 50-year-old woman who was due to be executed on Wednesday.
asserted
who → fail → Wednesday
Pike was taken to hospital after it was found that her heart was still beating following the procedure.
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heart → take → procedure
Pike would have been the first woman in more than 200 years to be put to death in Tennessee and was the only woman on the state’s death row.
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Pike → put → row
Her attempted execution with doses of the sedative pentobarbital went ahead despite a last-minute stay by a federal appeals court on Wednesday, which was overturned just an hour before her execution by the Supreme Court.
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which → attempt → Court
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Human rights experts said the botched execution illustrates why the death penalty is inhumane and should be abolished.
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penalty → halt → injection
Clive Stafford Smith, a human rights lawyer who has represented many American death row inmates as well as detainees held at the notorious Guantanamo Bay detention centre, told Al Jazeera: “I’ve been in the execution chamber with six of my clients and it’s never the clinical process they’d have you believe.
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you → represent → clients
And it’s always a desperate midnight struggle to stop it.
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it → ’ → it
He added: “In the end, you have to question whether this makes the world a better, more civilised place.
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world → add → end
Why, indeed, do we kill people to prove that killing people is wrong?”
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killing → kill → people
Ahead of the planned execution, Morris Tidball-Binz, the UN special rapporteur on arbitrary executions, told the UK’s Times newspaper: “If executed, Christa Pike would be a victim of torture to death.
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Pike → plan → death
Here’s what we know about what happens when an execution goes wrong.
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execution → ’ → what
Pike was found guilty of the murder of another young woman she had viewed as a romantic rival, when she was aged 18, more than 30 years ago.
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she → find → 18
In January 1995, Pike, her 17-year-old boyfriend Tadaryl Shipp and 18-year-old Shadolla Peterson lured Colleen Slemmer, 19, into a wooded area and tortured and killed her.
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Pike → lure → her
The case attracted huge public interest, especially after it was revealed that the attackers had carved a pentagram into Slemmer’s chest, which Shipp later admitted to doing.
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Shipp → attract → which
Pike, who delivered the killing blow to the victim’s head, smashing her skull, kept a piece of Slemmer’s skull afterwards.
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who → deliver → skull
Pike and Shipp confessed and were convicted of first-degree murder in 1996.
asserted
Pike → confess → 1996
Pike was sentenced to death; Shipp, who was 17 at the time and therefore ineligible for the death penalty, received life with the possibility of parole.
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who → sentence → parole
Her case is highly unusual in that she is a woman and was a teenager when she carried out the murder.
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she → carry → murder
Other death row inmates who were convicted at the age of 18 – all men – have had their sentences commuted to life in prison without parole.
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sentences → convict → parole
“Christa is a 50-year-old remorseful woman who understands her actions,” her lawyers wrote.
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lawyers → understand → actions
They also argued that Pike had been the victim of appalling childhood abuse – including two rapes when she was aged 11 and 17.
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she → argue → rapes
Stafford Smith told Al Jazeera: “Very few women are executed, but fewer still in Tennessee – it has been 200 years.
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it → tell → Tennessee
Christa was just a teenager, and had undergone horrendous abuse as a child.
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Christa → undergo → child
It is so pointless – will this really make the world a more civilised place?”
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world → make → ?
Slemmer’s mother, May Martinez, however, has spoken out in support of the execution.
uncertain
mother → speak → execution
On Wednesday, a federal court temporarily put the planned execution on hold, on legal and technical grounds.
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court → put → grounds
But an hour before the midnight deadline for her execution was to expire, the US Supreme Court overruled the stay on her execution, paving the way for jail authorities to proceed.
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authorities → expire → way
Pike had asked to be shot by an all-female firing squad instead of by lethal injection, which she said she feared would be too painful.
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she → ask → injection
Her lawyers had also argued that the injection would be torturous for her as she has “small veins”.
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she → argue → veins
This request was denied, however.
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request → deny → ?
How did the execution go wrong?
Following the Supreme Court’s order to go ahead with the execution, Pike was administered two doses of the sedative pentobarbital at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville, Tennessee, on Wednesday evening, according to media witnesses.
uncertain
Pike → go → witnesses
From outside the prison, The Associated Press journalist Kim Chandler reported that, initially, when the injections were administered, Pike appeared noticeably awake.
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Pike → report → prison
“The blinds were closed for the first time to the execution chamber at 7:46pm (23:46 GMT), they opened again at 7:49pm (23:49 GMT),” Chandler said.
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Chandler → close → 7:49pm
“Her mouth fell open a few times, and she began to loudly snore.
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she → fall → ?
She gasped a few times,” she noted.
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she → gasp → ?
“The curtain to the execution chamber closed for the final time at 8:06pm (00:06 GMT), and she could be heard loudly snoring, clearly very alive, in the chamber until media witnesses were told to leave the area at about 8:53pm (00:53 GMT),” Chandler added.
uncertain
Chandler → close → 8:53pm
The Tennessee Department of Correction did not immediately explain why the execution had not been completed.
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execution → explain → Correction
According to NBC News, late on Wednesday, Pike’s lawyers had filed a federal court motion during the process seeking again to halt her execution, citing witnesses’ accounts that “executioners had injected both syringes of lethal injection chemicals and Pike is still alive and snoring”.
“Ms Pike has not lost consciousness and still has a heartbeat and is audibly snoring,” they said, according to the court documents seen by the media.
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they → accord → media
Her lawyers also told US media that while she was being treated at a hospital, she needed “immediate medical care”.
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she → tell → care
Why didn’t the execution work?
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execution → work → ?
…and 29 more, not listed.
The Aporia
