Monday, October 05, 2026

This Is Wrong! So Very Wrong!

You turned her into a drooling vegetable.
AP New
By  KIM CHANDLER and KRISTIN M. HALL
October 1, 2026

Christa Pike was in critical condition Thursday and receiving “lifesaving care” at a hospital, her lawyers said, a day after a failed attempt to execute her pushed Tennessee’s governor to halt further executions this year and order an independent review.

[...]

“We don’t have a sense of her prognosis or much update on her health at the moment,” attorney Randy Spivey said during a news conference. “But we know she is alive right now.”

The failed execution, which one death penalty expert described as unprecedented, led Republican Gov. Bill Lee to order a review, calling what happened “deeply disturbing” and indefinitely postponing Pike’s execution and another one that had been scheduled for this year. It also reignited the debate over the state’s execution procedures, including its single-drug lethal injections.
So... she might be in a state of  prolonged unconsciousness requiring a ventilator, feeding tube, nursing care, etc. due to lack of oxygen. If she is it will mean that the Tennessee's Department of Correction is responsible for providing medical care to people incarcerated in its prisons, including hospitalization and treatment when necessary. Which could run into the millions each year!

The Death Penalty Information Center (DPI) reports that (According to ChatGPT):
  • The system is demonstrably fallible. Since 1973, at least 203 people who were sentenced to death have been exonerated in the United States. Tennessee itself has had three death-row exonerations. 
  • The risk isn't merely theoretical. A peer-reviewed study estimated that at least 4.1% of people sentenced to death were likely wrongfully convicted, although that is an estimate rather than a count of proven innocent people. 
  • Once an execution occurs, the error cannot be corrected. An imprisoned innocent person can theoretically be released and compensated; an executed person cannot be restored to life.
  • On deterrence, the evidence is considerably less straightforward than “states with executions have less crime.” The National Research Council concluded that existing research was not sufficient to determine whether the death penalty increases, decreases, or has no effect on homicide rates. So it would be inaccurate to claim that executions have been demonstrated to reduce murder.
  • There is also a documented problem with official misconduct in capital cases. DPIC currently identifies more than 600 capital convictions or death sentences overturned or resulting in exonerations involving prosecutorial misconduct. 
After you fry someone you can't say "Ops... sorry, we made a mistake!" There is a real question behind all the rhetoric... if all the evidence doesn't capital punishment makes any difference, why are they so eager to fry someone? Why? Could it possible for votes? I know I'm cynical.



The Nashville Tennessean writes;
Kelly Puente & Rachel Wegner
Oct. 2, 2026


An Oct. 2 emergency court filing seeks to preserve all evidence related to Tennessee's failed execution of Christa Pike, arguing the state botched the lethal injection procedure.

A judge was considering the request shortly after it was filed. While an unsigned document for the hearing was filed in the court system, no date or time was immediately listed.

Pike was set to be executed by the Tennessee Department of Correction on Sept. 30, but survived two doses of pentobarbital. The document, filed in Davidson County Chancery Court on Oct. 2, revealed more details about Pike's condition. It said she is intubated, on a ventilator and unconscious, and that both her arms were swollen, burned and blistered. As of the night of Oct. 1, Pike was still in critical condition at a Nashville-area hospital, the motion said.

"Hospital staff are working to save Ms. Pike's life and to clear the pentobarbital from her system," the Oct. 2 motion stated.

[...]

"Apparently at no point did any member of the execution team realize that the IV lines were not correctly placed or that the veins had blown and that the pentobarbital was, in whole or in part, entering Ms. Pike's body," the emergency motion stated. "Instead of remedying this failure, TDOC elected to prepare a backup set of syringes (if they were not also prepared earlier that day) and then administered another lethal dose of pentobarbital."
That is torture!

The Eighth Amendment states:
"Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted."

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