Last week, Christa Pike was set to executed by lethal injection. It wasn’t successful as she reportedly didn’t die but is unconscious with no certainty if she’ll regain consciousness. Her lawyers say she could’ve suffered serious brain injury.
The $64,000 question is if she fully recovers while the State of Tennessee Department of Corrections fulfil the death penalty the courts ordered back in 1996. Considering what happened, what does it say about the death penalty if we execute a woman with a serious brain injury? Could the governor commute her sentence to life?
Another $64,000 question is was this th original intention all along?
For many years, Pike was just another woman in prison. But then a video clip of her crying in court as the judge denies her one last hug from her mother went viral. Defense attorneys do their best to make their clients look innocent. With her curly hair and southern twang so sharp it could slice a tin can like a tomato, she could’ve come off as sympathetic.
But her crime wasn’t. On Jan. 12, 1995, Pike, 18 at the time, and her boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, 17, were in a Job Corp program at the University of Tennessee campus in Knoxville. They lured another student, Colleen Slemmer, 19, to an isolated area near one of the dormitories. Reportedly, Pike was jealous of Slemmer who she believed was interested in Shipp. Another student, Shadolla Peterson, also 18 at the time, had lured Slemmer to the area as they were going to put their differences behind them and smoke cannabis.
Pike and Shipp brutally attacked her with a meat cleaver and box cutter for about half an hour while Peterson attacked as a lookout. They even carved a Pentagram into her chest while she was alive. Pike even took a piece of Slemmer’s skull that she showed off. Pike, Shipp and Peterson were all charged with first-degree murder. Shipp was charged as an adult despite being 17. He was ineligible for the death penalty due to his age.
Pike had denied a plea deal to get life without parole. Peterson agreed to be a prosecution witness and received a sentence of accessory after the fact. Born in southern West Virginia, the deep parts of Appalachia, she had a troubled youth of reported sexual and physical abuse. She had been raped at 11 and attempted suicide at 12. She had spent time in a juvenile evaluation center for petty crimes. Yet, defenders say her lawyers never focused on this during the trial and sentencing.
I’d argue her sentence was because she was dating a black man, Shipp, and they were involved in devil worship. But at 18, she was unfairly targeted because Shipp couldn’t be sentenced to death. In 1944, George Stinney Jr., only 14, was tried, convicted and executed under mysterious circumstances. He reportedly was forced to confess to the murder of two young white girls in Jim Crow segregated South Carolina. No way would they try to send Shipp to death row in the mid-1990s with Bill Clinton as president and Janet Reno as attorney general.
Still, Pike’s sentence might have been commuted if she didn’t attempt to strangle Patricia Jones, another prison inmate, in 2001. This seemed to send the message that Pike was a danger to society and at 25, she was incapable of rehabilitation.
As for the execution attempt, it’s likely she didn’t drink much water for the days or weeks leading up. When I had to do an endoscopy and colonoscopy in 2010, they had to stick me several times to inject an IV. I did all I could to drink s much water as I could but as you prepare for it, you lose body water.
And then again, some people just aren’t as good at finding veins as others. I still don’t know how they find the vein and I’ve had many IV needles for blood work. It took two attempts to deliver the pentobarbital and she was still alive. The physician, Mark Fowler, has come under scrutiny for another botched lethal injection earlier this year.
But maybe this is another intention. Why is a physician administrating lethal doses. When they used to hang people, it was usually a sheriff, marshal or court-appointed official. Firing squads have been given rifles unbeknownst of who had a live round and a blank cartridge. Maybe people are trying to show how cruel and unusual the punishment is. Granted Pike didn’t show no mercy for Slemmer.
But she’s been on death row for 30 years. And the public attention now is going to be a no-win despite the outcome. Slemmer’s family and friends need this to end. Even unconscious with a suspected brain injury, medical staff at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, where Pike is, still have to give her unconditional care. If she isn’t going to regain consciousness, should she be taken off life support.
And
About half of the states have the death penalty. One day, it may be banned across the entire nation. It was temporarily banned in the 1970s. I, myself, am still on the fence. Historically, it’s been used unjustly and unfairly against black people and those of lower income and socioeconomic status. Also, it seems we’re discovering more and more cases of people forced into confessions or how evidence has been suppressed.
Then again, the world is a better place without Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy and Timothy McVeigh. Should it only be for serial killers or mass murderers? And if so, how do we draw the line?
Basically, our entire law enforcement, judicial and prison systems need a total overhaul. But I don’t see it happening anytime soon.
Slemmer was killed just because of jealousy, some silly teenage thing millions other teenagers deal with and no blood is spilled. Pike is now 50. Slemmer never got to turn 20. Her birthday is Sept. 20. She would’ve been celebrating her 51st birthday with a spouse/partner, some kids and possibly grandkids. Yes, the system may have failed Pike but Slemmer didn’t do anything at all.
Let’s remember the life that was taken from her.
What do you think? Please comment.
