Christa Pike released from hospital and returned to Tennessee prison | Death penalty news
Pike survived two doses of lethal injection drugs on September 30, renewing consideration of the death penalty.
Published on October 10, 2026
Christa Pike has been released from the hospital and returned to a women’s prison in Tennessee after surviving the US state’s attempt to execute her by lethal injection, her lawyers announced Saturday.
The 50-year-old is back at the Deborah K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center where she was incarcerated for 30 years. She had been hospitalized since September 30, when authorities gave her two doses of pentobarbital in an attempt to execute her.
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Pike was sentenced to death for the 1995 beating and stabbing of her classmate, Colleen Slemmer.
Her lawyers said she continued to receive medical treatment 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 focused attention on the death penalty in the United States as another controversy unfolds over the military’s plan to livestream the execution of Nidal Malik Hasan. The former military psychiatrist was convicted of murdering 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009. His execution is scheduled for December 3.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s announcement Thursday of the live broadcast drew criticism, even from some supporters of capital punishment. Vice President JD Vance questioned Friday whether that would happen and said he wouldn’t watch. In a social media post, Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina called the proposal “beyond disgusting.”
Archbishop Paul S. Coakley, president of the United States 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 did not prompt Republican lawmakers to reconsider capital punishment. Instead, some spoke of alternative methods, including the electric chair and firing squads.
In the United States, support for the death penalty has declined since its peak in the 1990s. Ten states have abolished capital punishment since Pike’s conviction in 1996, but executions continue across the country.
Thirty people have been executed in the United States this year, with eight more planned, mainly in Texas and Florida.
A Pew Research Center poll in July found that about two-thirds of American adults believe the death penalty is morally justified for people convicted of murder. But about six in 10 said it did not deter crime, while about seven in 10 said there was some risk that an innocent person would be executed.
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