NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) – Christa Pike regained consciousness about six days after that of Tennessee failed attempt to execute it and “spoke in a limited manner,” one of his lawyers said during a court hearing Wednesday.
Pike, 50, survived even after the executioners tried to give him two fatal doses of pentobarbital on September 30. She was sentenced to death for the 1995 beating and stabbing of classmate Colleen Slemmer.
The Death Penalty Information Center says Pike is the only person to survive after being given lethal injection drugs during an execution.
Pike’s attorneys were participating in a status hearing Wednesday in Nashville, where they sought a court order requiring the Tennessee Department of Correction to preserve evidence in the case and provide more information about what went wrong.
AP AUDIO: Christa Pike is awake and speaking ‘limitedly’ after attempted execution in Tennessee, lawyer says
AP correspondent Julie Walker reports that a Texas lawyer is seeking to block his execution, citing the failed execution of Christa Pike.
“Part of the problem we face is that until yesterday our client was unconscious, unable to communicate with an attorney, unable to communicate with medical providers and without her consent,” Luke Ihnen, a federal public defender, told the court.
Her legal team said Tuesday that Pike’s prognosis remains uncertain and that she is expected to have a long recovery at a minimum. Her arms were burned and blistered after the lethal injection attempt and she is handcuffed to the hospital bed, they said.
The failed execution renewed its scrutiny of how states carry out their activities the death penaltyin particular the use of lethal injection. Texas was scheduled to proceed Wednesday the first execution in the United States since Tennessee attempted to put Pike to death.
Christa Pike’s lawyers want evidence preserved
Pike’s attorneys are seeking a court order to require the prison system to preserve information related to the attempted execution, including drug lot numbers, needles, execution logs and other information.
Initial arguments focused on whether the request should be heard in a chancery court in Nashville or the Tennessee Supreme Court.
Lawyers for the Tennessee Attorney General’s Office wrote in a court filing Tuesday that a court order was not necessary because the prison system is “obligated to preserve this evidence in other cases and must ensure that it is preserved.” They said state officials took “the necessary steps to obtain medical care for Pike and determine what happened.”
Republican Gov. Bill Lee called what happened “deeply disturbing” and ordered a “thorough third-party review to determine exactly what happened.” The governor postponed the only other execution scheduled this year in the state.
The State the prison chief resigned following the execution failure.
Christa Pike’s recovery remains uncertain
Medicine and lethal injection experts have focused on the possibility that a problem with the IV line caused the drug to build up in his tissues rather than enter his bloodstream. Pike’s lawyers wrote in their court filing that “apparently, at no time did any member of the execution team realize that the intravenous lines were not properly placed or that the veins had burst.”
The attempted execution started around 7:30 p.m. on September 30, when Pike had the opportunity to make a final statement. About five minutes later, Pike looked up and said his arm hurt. At one point, she appeared to lose consciousness, but could be heard breathing until media were escorted from the witness room at 8:53 p.m. An ambulance arrived at the prison at 9:14 p.m. to take Pike to the hospital.
Dr. Joel Zivot, a professor of anesthesiology and surgery in Atlanta and consulting as an expert to Pike’s legal team, said it could be weeks or months before anyone knows exactly what his recovery might look like and whether his competency could be restored so the state can try to execute him again.
___
Associated Press writers Ed White in Detroit and John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio, contributed.
Gn usa
