Tennessee’s prison chief is under fire for the failed execution of Christa Pike, which lawyers say was the fifth “botched” execution under his leadership across two states since 2022.
asserted
lawyers → fail → 2022
Frank Strada, the commissioner of the Tennessee department of correction, has faced mounting questions about the state’s highly secretive death penalty protocols since Wednesday evening when Pike became the first death row prisoner in the US to to be injected with lethal drugs and survive.
asserted
Pike → face → drugs
Witnesses said Pike, 50, was heard choking and struggling an hour after receiving the first injection of pentobarbital, a sedative, and after a second dose failed to kill her, she was hospitalized in critical condition.
asserted
she → say → condition
The scrutiny on Strada comes as Pike’s failed execution has sparked international outrage, with lawyers and advocates calling for a national halt on executions in the US.
asserted
lawyers → come → US
Pike’s lawyers have called the process “cruel and torturous”, and one death penalty expert said it was the worst botched execution in modern history.
asserted
it → call → history
Bill Lee, Tennessee’s Republican governor, has suspended executions in the state until the end of the year and ordered an independent inquiry.
asserted
Lee → suspend → inquiry
He called the case “deeply disturbing”, but when a reporter asked him about Strada’s leadership, Lee responded: “So far as we know, the department of correction followed exactly the protocol that was outlined.”
asserted
that → call → protocol
The journalist was pressing the governor on Strada’s history, which includes another failed execution in May of this year, when Tennessee officials struggled for more than an hour to locate Tony Carruthers’ vein, prompting the procedure to be called off.
uncertain
procedure → press → vein
And when Strada was a deputy prison director in Arizona in 2022, the state carried out three executions that experts and attorneys said were prolonged and “botched”.
asserted
experts → carry → executions
Death penalty lawyers said there were common threads in the five problematic executions under Strada, including the prisoners’ protracted suffering and questionable injection procedures, and argued Lee should never have appointed Strada given his Arizona record.
Tennessee department of correction spokespeople declined to answer questions about Strada’s record on Friday and said the commissioner was unavailable for an interview.
asserted
commissioner → say → interview
A spokesperson for Lee did not respond to inquiries.
asserted
spokesperson → respond → inquiries
After joining Arizona’s corrections department in 2020, Strada oversaw executions, which included forming the teams that carried out the procedures, monitoring the practices and obtaining lethal injection drugs, he said in a deposition.
asserted
he → join → deposition
In the May 2022 execution of Clarence Dixon in Arizona, a media witness said the execution team struggled to place IVs to administer the lethal drugs, ultimately requiring them to make an incision by his groin to insert the IV.
uncertain
team → say → IV
That process, according to his attorneys, took roughly 40 minutes.
uncertain
process → accord → minutes
In June 2022, a witness said Frank Atwood, a death row prisoner, had to help executioners find a vein after officials repeatedly struggled to kill the 66-year-old, who had a degenerative spinal condition.
asserted
who → say → condition
And in November 2022, Arizona officials struggled to find a vein in Murray Hooper, forcing them to insert a catheter into his groin.
asserted
officials → struggle → groin
The Death Penalty Information Center, a non-profit organization that studies capital punishment, classified all three Arizona executions as “botched”, based on researchers’ analysis.
asserted
that → study → analysis
“Botched” is not a legal term, but the group says executions can be botched when there is a breakdown in protocol or unexpected problems or delays that cause needless suffering.
asserted
that → say → suffering
Dale Baich, who represented Arizona death row prisoners during Strada’s tenure, said the fact that execution officials’ struggled to find veins suggested they were not qualified:
uncertain
they → represent → veins
“If your job is to access veins, you should be able to do that ... to me, it indicated the department of corrections did not properly vet those team members.”
asserted
department → access → members
In a 2023 declaration in a court case, Arizona’s corrections director said his review of execution procedures identified “several critical issues”, including “inadequate knowledge and expertise” of the people involved in executions, concerns about the IV team’s procedures, and concerns about the efficacy of the drugs.
asserted
review → say → drugs
Despite reports of three botched Arizona executions, Lee appointed Strada to head Tennessee’s prisons in early 2023.
asserted
Lee → botch → 2023
That appointment came while Tennessee was grappling with its own scandals around lethal injections, with a 2022 state-commissioned independent report finding that Tennessee had failed to follow protocol in several executions, not properly tested drugs and had a “tunnel-vision, result-oriented” approach to executions.
asserted
Tennessee → come → executions
Death row attorneys have argued that Strada has failed to address the problems raised in that report.
asserted
Strada → argue → report
Under Strada, Tennessee removed a key training requirement for people involved in lethal injections, according to Kit Thomas, a death row attorney.
uncertain
Tennessee → remove → Thomas
Before Strada joined, execution team members were directed to practice catheterization with saline, records show.
asserted
records → join → saline
But training guidelines put in place under Strada eliminated that requirement, saying: “No IV is inserted into the person playing the role of the inmate.”
asserted
IV → put → inmate
“He reduced the training requirements and we’ve seen disastrous results,” said Thomas.
asserted
Thomas → reduce → results
“He oversaw executions in Arizona which involved prolonged, torturous attempts to establish IV lines, and he brought a similar practice here.
asserted
he → oversee → practice
After Strada left Arizona, corrections officials made changes to the state’s lethal injection process, including increasing the number of people on the IV team responsible for injections and requiring more rigorous training, records show.
asserted
records → leave → training
But Strada has not overseen similar changes in Tennessee, instead implementing a protocol that mirrored the older Arizona policy of requiring only two people on the IV team that does injections, Thomas noted.
asserted
Thomas → oversee → injections
Thomas also provided excerpts of a November 2025 deposition where Strada was questioned by death row attorneys.
asserted
Strada → provide → attorneys
When Strada was asked what he considered to be a successful execution, he responded: “The condemned is put to death.”
asserted
condemned → ask → death
When a lawyer followed up, asking: “Anything else?”, Strada replied: “No.”
asserted
Strada → follow → Anything
Thomas said Strada’s response suggested he had “no regard for the experience of the individual being executed other than that they end up dead”.
uncertain
they → say → individual
The response, she added, echoed the same “tunnel-vision” approach to executions that investigators had called out in the Tennessee-commissioned report in 2022.
asserted
investigators → add → 2022
In the 2025 deposition, Strada further acknowledged he had not followed some of the recommendations of the 2022 report, including failing to hire a full-time employee or consultant with a pharmaceutical background to provide guidance on the lethal injection process and failing to hire a full-time employee or consultant to assist with locating lethal injection sources.
asserted
he → acknowledge → sources
“What good is an independent investigation if those investigators provide recommendations that are ignored?” said Thomas.
asserted
Thomas → provide → recommendations
Questions mount over lethal drugs
Questions about how the state acquires, maintains and administers lethal injection drugs are critical following the botched killing of Pike, who was sentenced to death in 1996 at age 20 for the murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer.
asserted
who → mount → Slemmer
Pike’s lawyers said Friday that she remained unconscious and on a ventilator.
asserted
she → say → ventilator
…and 11 more, not listed.
The Aporia
