Christa Pike, who survived Tennessee’s attempt to execute her by lethal injection a month ago, is speaking out for the first time, saying she is recovering, “but healing is not the same as being okay.”
“There hasn’t been a moment since that night when I haven’t been in pain. My body hurts. My arms hurt. My hands hurt. My throat hurts. I still struggle to speak,” Pike said in a written statement her attorneys say was dictated to them. “And the pain isn’t just physical. There is pain in my mind and in my soul.”
Pike, 50, was hospitalized after she survived two doses of pentobarbital as the state attempted to execute her on September 30 for the 1995 beating and stabbing death of classmate Colleen Slemmer. Soon after the failed procedure, Pike was on a ventilator, and her attorneys did not expect her to survive. But she woke up and later began talking and walking with assistance.
I think she’s earned life in prison at this point. They should stop trying.
She’s not innocent, she’s a murderer, but she also doesn’t deserve to be tortured by the state either. Life in prison.
Executions last time I heard, where more expensive anyways.
How? I mean obviously the answer is rancid festering weaponized capitalism, but gawt dayum how can we make 30 years of prisoner rent, food, and clothing cost the same as what should be a milligram of fentanyl?
Most people sentenced to death spend a lot of time fighting in court, which is much more expensive than simply keeping someone alive for 30+ years.
https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/what-to-know-costs-and-the-death-penalty
Wouldn’t that also be true for someone condemned to life in prison?
In any case, I feel like people given life, especially at 18, should be given the option of death, life sentence is way harsher than death in my eyes.
You also have all those costs while people are on death-row and going through the appeals, which can take decades by itself.
That she is. She killed her at 19 years old, which is pretty young. In germany, it would be legal not to try her as an adult and she would not get capital punishment. Probably fifteen years and change and getting out if she can be rehabilitated after that. This is just cruel.
She also tried to kill another prisoner several years after her initial crime. That’s reason to believe she’s more murderous than the average murderer and would present a danger to the public if released.
Life in prison or a mental health facility seems like the only reasonable option to me unless she was able to present compelling evidence that she is no longer dangerous.
That person came out and said later she had intended to kill someone and she did it to try to stop her. Which not all the stories line up but unless she was scared enough of a woman in solitary confinement, I think should could have some bearing on whether or not such should be used against her.