USA - Tennessee. When Could Christa Pike Face a 2nd Execution or Be Spared?

October 9, 2026 - Tennessee. When Could Christa Pike Face a 2nd Execution or Be Spared? Death Penalty Expert Weighs In.

Christa Pike may have survived an execution attempt—but could she be spared another one? It’s possible, according to an expert in capital punishment.

“That is going to be a political decision and not necessarily a legal decision,” Secrets of the Killing State: The Untold Story of Lethal Injection author Corinna Barrett Lain, who was not involved in Pike’s case, told Oxygen in an Oct. 9 exclusive interview. “The Supreme Court held, back in 1947, that when a state botches an execution so badly that the person survives, the state can try again—‘It was an accident, accidents happen’—so there’s no legal barrier there.”

Pike, who had been in prison for three decades for the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, was scheduled to die by lethal injection Sept. 30. But the procedure, attempted at Tennessee’s Riverbend Maximum Security Institution, left her alive and in critical condition, despite receiving two doses of pentobarbital.

While Pike’s lawyers said they initially believed that Pike was brain-dead, she is now conscious and has begun speaking and walking with some assistance. Her recovery, they said, is “medically unprecedented.”

Pike’s mental competency also matters when it comes to another execution attempt.

“Now, that’s a very low standard,” Lain, who’s also the George E. Allen Chair in Law at The University of Richmond, said. “The person just has to understand that the state is trying to kill them and the reason—they don’t even have to remember their crime.”

As Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee launches an investigation into the failed execution, Pike’s health—and her future—are uncertain.

“In some ways, her execution is exceptional,” Lain noted. “It’s the first time we’ve had someone where the drugs were actually injected, and yet they lived. But it is certainly not the first time that we’ve seen executions that are so botched that the person survives their own execution.”

Lain cited the 2022 execution of Alan Eugene Miller, during which officials could not easily gain IV access for lethal injection drugs.

“They punctured him 18 times,” she said. “And after 18 times they said, ‘we are not going to be able to get IV access. Let’s just call it a day.’ Alabama later gassed him.

Could Christa Pike Face Execution A Second Time After Botched Lethal Injection?
Lain said it’s “absolutely possible” that Pike could face an alternative manner of execution, due to Tennessee’s unique capital punishment laws: the state allows some death row inmates to choose between certain execution methods.

“From 2018 to 2022, the state of Tennessee executed seven people and five of the seven prisoners elected to die by electrocution,” Lain said. “I found that to be very curious because the electric chair is a gruesome, gruesome death.”

“Every witness has talked about smelling the sickly smell of burning flesh,” she said of the latter method. “They put a hood over your face because you bleed from your orifices—terrible things, right? So why would these prisoners choose to die by the electric chair?”

Death row inmates have answered this question.

“They said, ‘We know that both lethal injection and electric chair are going to be tortuous deaths and our best move is to make it quick,’” Lain said. “Death by electrocution is two to three minutes—now, your head may catch fire—but the average time for the one-drug protocol is 18 minutes. That’s a long time.”

The realities of lethal injection also question whether it’s compassionate. Lain said the “botch rate” is twice that of any other method.

“The narrative is, this is the most humane death,” she said. “These people are just falling to ‘forever sleep’ and most people don’t realize that the three-drug protocol that every state used for the first 35 or 40 years of lethal injection, one of those drugs was a paralytic…it’s also a muscle relaxant.”

“You’re going to get this nice ‘drifting off to sleep’ look,” Lain added, “regardless of what is actually happening.”

Pike’s case has brought attention to the risks of lethal injection, Lain said, including potential discussions about what comes next for the only woman on Tennessee’s death row.

“If I were behind those doors, I would be very nervous about, ‘Is this going to happen to me? What do we do when it does?’” Lain said. “This is a public relations nightmare.”