Christa Pike’s lawyers to appear in court after failed execution of US death row inmate – live updates
Key moments in Pike’s execution will be scrutinizedpublished at 4:36 p.m. BST
Stéphanie Hégarty
BBC News
As we mentioned earlier, today’s hearing is intended to preserve all documents and evidence from the attempted execution.
And questions arise about those key moments after Pike was injected with the deadly chemical.
For example, the curtain was repeatedly closed on the execution chamber and Pike’s lawyers and media witnesses said they were not kept informed of what was happening.
Last year, a group of news organizations sued the warden of the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville — where Pike’s execution took place — and the state’s commissioner of corrections, arguing that the press has a right to witness executions in their entirety.
Under state protocol, media witnesses could only see about 10 to 15 minutes of an execution. The curtains opened after the prisoner was strapped in and the intravenous lines were put in place, and closed before death was pronounced.
In January, a Nashville judge ordered the curtains to remain open until the death was pronounced.
But in April, the Tennessee Supreme Court stayed that order while the state appealed, so the older, more limited rules still applied in Pike’s execution.
We might see this issue raised again today.
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