The head of Tennessee’s prison system is resigning, Gov. Bill Lee announced Saturday, the first major staff shakeup since the Christa Pike stunner. execution failure left her unconscious and on a ventilator in a hospital.
Frank Strada, commissioner of the Department of Correction, will resign this month, Lee said. Some of the governor’s Republican colleagues and other elected officials had called for a change in direction.
It was the second time since May, Tennessee has failed to execute a prisoner who appeared close to death.
Strada said in a statement that the resignation was “in the best interest of Tennesseans” while an independent review determines what happened Wednesday when the state failed to execute Pike despite administering two doses of the deadly drug pentobarbital.
“I believe this review is entirely appropriate and necessary, and I look forward to doing everything I can to help determine exactly what happened,” Strada said.
Pike, now 50, was 18 when she and her boyfriend tortured and killed a classmate, Colleen Slemmer, in a jealous rage in 1995. She became one of the youngest women to be sent to death row.
Strada defends execution protocol
There was no immediate response from Pike’s attorneys for an update Saturday on his condition at the hospital. They had disclosed on Friday that she was on a ventilator and unconscious in the hours following the attempted execution and that hospital staff were trying to clear the scene. two doses of pentobarbital.
THE shocking failure has left both sides of the death penalty debate demanding answers. Lee ordered an independent review and stopped any further executions. Strada said he believes the state “has carried out its responsibilities in accordance with established protocol.”
Pike’s legal team welcomed Strada’s departure but said “it does nothing to help Christa now.”
“What happened to him on Wednesday reflects a systemic failure that goes well beyond any one person,” the four-lawyer team said. “We hope the governor’s call for a comprehensive, independent review will shine a light on the deep problems plaguing Tennessee’s entire death penalty system.” »
Second execution failure since May
Pike’s lawyers said they believe problems with the intravenous lines caused the pentobarbital to leak into his body instead of into his bloodstream.
In May, Tennessee stopped the execution of Tony Carruthers after staff placed an IV in his right arm but were unable to get a secondary IV. The governor ordered authorities to wait at least a year before attempting to execute him again.
Strada took over the Department of Corrections in January 2023 after serving as deputy director of the Arizona Department of Corrections. In late 2024, he announced that Tennessee was changing its lethal injection protocol and would only use pentobarbital.
Four people have been executed in Tennessee since 2025, according to the correctional department.
Some Arizona executions have had problems
When Strada was in Arizona, the state resumed executions in 2022 after a nearly eight-year hiatus, following criticism of an execution that lasted about two hours as well as difficulties obtaining certain drugs.
Clarence Dixon was the first this year. The medical team struggled to find a vein to administer the deadly drugs and eventually made an incision in the groin. The process took approximately 25 minutes.
That same year in Arizona, medical personnel preparing Frank Atwood for execution At first, he couldn’t locate a vein in his right arm, but he inserted the IV into his right hand — at Atwood’s suggestion, said Henry Brean, an Arizona Daily Star reporter who was a witness.
Strada announced Execution of Murray Hooper by lethal injection, the third in 2022. There was an unsuccessful attempt to insert an IV line into his right arm. The IV in Hooper’s leg was inserted into his femoral artery.
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