Christa Pike remained unconscious on a ventilator after Tennessee’s failed attempt to execute her by lethal injection Wednesday night. She was rushed from Riverbend Maximum Security Institution to an off-site hospital after receiving two doses of pentobarbital that did not kill her.
That is why people are asking now whether Christa Pike is awake: she is still in a hospital after the execution attempt left her alive but unresponsive. Her attorney said her long-term prognosis remains unclear and that no one knows whether she will recover.
Stephen Ferrell told that Pike has remained unconscious since the execution attempt. The state had tried to carry out the sentence at the prison, but the drugs failed, leaving her in medical care instead of custody at the execution chamber.
The unusual part is what happens next if she does not wake up. David Raybin said the death sentence was imposed by a court, but it was meant to be carried out at the prison. He said doctors cannot simply end her life at the hospital by removing life support, because that would not be a lawful execution.
Raybin said that if Pike’s family or medical power of attorney wanted life support ended, a judge would likely have to approve it. He also raised the question of what happens if she remains in a vegetative state indefinitely, and said any medical costs could fall on the state because of the failed execution attempt.
That leaves Pike in a rare legal and medical limbo: still under a death sentence, still unconscious, and still alive because the state’s lethal injection did not work as intended. Her attorneys have asked Governor Bill Lee to commute her sentence, but for now the immediate question is narrower and more urgent than the appeal itself — whether anyone can decide to end the treatment keeping her alive.
