Tennessee Judge Orders Preservation of Evidence in Christa Pike’s Failed Execution

Nashville: A Tennessee judge on Wednesday ordered state prison officials to preserve all evidence related to the failed attempt to execute death row inmate Christa Pike, who survived two lethal doses of pentobarbital last week and remains hospitalised in Nashville.

Chancellor I’Ashea Myles of the Davidson County Chancery Court granted an emergency motion filed by Pike’s attorneys, requiring the Tennessee Department of Correction (TDOC) to safeguard all physical, written and electronic material connected to the September 30 execution attempt. The order covers log books, observation records, medical waste and products, electrocardiogram readouts, and all communications sent or received by officials involved in the execution. It also extends to any material concerning deviations from protocol, complications, delays, equipment problems and difficulties in accessing Pike’s veins. The judge said that everything in the execution chamber itself must be preserved and maintained.

Myles also granted a request from Pike’s legal team for broad access to their client, ordering prison officials to respond within two hours to requests from her lawyers for in-person visits.

Pike’s attorneys had argued that the failed execution amounted to cruel and unusual punishment and that the state had a duty to preserve evidence in light of reasonably foreseeable litigation. Luke Ihnen, an assistant federal defender in Knoxville, told the court that the defence did not know what evidence the state held and was therefore seeking the broadest possible preservation order. Speaking to reporters after the ruling, Ihnen described the order as a first step towards enforcing Pike’s constitutional rights, and said the failure had been foreseen because Pike has a medical condition that makes it difficult to insert an intravenous line. Another of her attorneys, Randy Spivey, said Pike was angry and confused following the ordeal.

Lawyers for the state argued that a court order was unnecessary, as officials were already taking steps to preserve evidence. The court heard that physical evidence had been collected from the execution chamber on the night of September 30 and logged into a preservation room. TDOC has maintained that it followed every step of the state’s lawful, established execution protocol approved by the Attorney General’s Office.

The preservation order could lay the groundwork for a future lawsuit against the state over the handling of the execution. Pike had filed a complaint nine months before the execution attempt arguing that carrying out the sentence would constitute cruel and unusual punishment. Her attorneys have since confirmed that she is awake and speaking.

Pike, 50, is the only woman on Tennessee’s death row, where she has been held since her sentencing in April 1996. She was convicted of the 1995 killing of Colleen Slemmer, a fellow student at the Knoxville Job Corps career-training programme.