Christa Pike discharged from hospital and returned to Tennessee prison

Pike survived two doses of lethal-injection drugs on September 30, renewing scrutiny of capital punishment.

Christa Pike has been discharged from hospital and returned to a Tennessee women’s prison after surviving the US state’s attempt to execute her by lethal injection, her lawyers said on Saturday.

The 50-year-old is back in the Deborah K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center where she had been incarcerated for 30 years. She had been in hospital since September 30 when officials administered two doses of pentobarbital in an attempt to execute her.

Pike was sentenced to death for the 1995 beating and stabbing of her classmate, Colleen Slemmer.

Her lawyers said she was continuing to receive medical care in prison and that they would monitor her recovery. They also expressed gratitude to the first responders and medical team who treated her.

The failed execution has drawn attention to the US death penalty as a separate controversy unfolds over the military’s plan to livestream the execution of Nidal Malik Hasan. The former army psychiatrist was convicted of killing 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009. His execution is scheduled for December 3.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s announcement on Thursday of the livestream drew criticism, even from some supporters of capital punishment. Vice President JD Vance questioned on Friday whether it would happen and said he would not watch. In a social media post, Republican Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina called the proposal “beyond disgusting”.

Archbishop Paul S Coakley, president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, also condemned the plan, calling it “a barbaric promotion of a culture of death”.

In Tennessee, however, Pike’s failed execution has not prompted Republican legislators to reconsider capital punishment. Instead, some have discussed alternative methods, including the electric chair and firing squads.

Support for the death penalty in the US has declined from its peak in the 1990s. Ten states have abolished capital punishment since Pike was sentenced in 1996, but executions continue nationwide.

Thirty people have been executed in the US this year, with eight more scheduled, mostly in Texas and Florida.

A Pew Research Center poll in July found that about two-thirds of US adults considered the death penalty morally justified for people convicted of murder. But roughly six in 10 said it did not deter crime, while about seven in 10 said there was some risk of an innocent person being executed.