On Sept. 30, Christa Pike became the only person ever to survive execution by lethal injection, according to Robin Maher of the Death Penalty Information Center.
“This is one of the worst botched executions in the modern death penalty era," Maher said on the organization's website. "Her attorneys warned of this exact scenario and were ignored."
Lawyers for Pike told the state of Tennessee that she had small veins and a blood condition, thrombocytosis, and that lethal injection was not a viable option for Pike.
Pike was administered two doses of the lethal injection drug pentobarbital and was then rushed to a Nashville hospital where she received lifesaving care. On Oct. 6, her attorneys said Pike was conscious and talking. The day before they said she was considered
"brain dead."
Pike's failed execution is uncharted legal and medical territory. Despite being the only person to survive lethal injection, Pike is not the first to experience a botched execution by the method.
Lethal injection botched execution rate
The Death Penalty Information Center is a nonprofit organization that provides data and analysis on capital punishment. As a part of its work, it provides information about botched execution rates in the U.S.
Between 1890 and 2010, it is estimated that 3% of all executions in the country were botched. Lethal Injection had the highest botched rate at 7.2%. Lethal injection is followed by lethal gas, 5.4% botched rate, hanging, 3.12%, and electrocution, 1.92%. Execution by firing squad has a 0% botched execution rate.
Of the 1,054 lethal injection executions tracked by the Death Penalty Information Center over 120 years, 75 of them were botched.
Just months before Pike's scheduled execution, the state planned to execute Tony Carruthers. The Tennessee Department of Correction spent over an hour trying to establish a secondary IV line as required by Tennessee law. Executioners eventually gave up. The Death Penalty Information Center considered Carruthers' execution botched.
A similar case happened during a March 13, 1985, execution in Texas. Stephen Peter Morin was repeatedly poked in both arms and one of his legs for 45 minutes before executioners found a suitable vein.
Two other Texas executions, Elliot Rod Johnson on June 24, 1987, and Raymond Landry, Dec. 13, 1988, both took close to an hour to complete.
Arizona, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Nevada, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Virginia have all also had botched lethal injection executions.
Every U.S. state that allows the death penalty, 27 in total, authorizes lethal injection as an execution method. Of those, 26 use some form of lethal injection, whether one drug or multiple drugs, as the primary method. South Carolina defaults to firing squad but permits lethal injection. The method is the most widely used despite having the highest failure rate.
What will happen to Christa Pike?
Pike's legal team has long asked for her sentence to be commuted to life in prison. Her attorneys said a first execution attempt would violate the cruel and unusual punishment clause of the Eighth Amendment due to Pike's traumatic past. They now argue that a second attempt to execute Pike would be a violation of the same clause.
Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee has not yet said what his plan for Pike is. During an Oct. 1 press conference, the last time Lee spoke publicly about Pike, he upheld his commitment to the death penalty.
A 1947 U.S. Supreme Court case, Louisiana ex rel. Francis v. Resweber, ruled that a second execution attempt after a first failed one is not in violation of the double jeopardy clause of the Fifth Amendment, the cruel and unusual punishment clause of the Eighth Amendment or the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The Supreme Court has not revisited this ruling since 1947, and Columbia Law School's Bernard Harcourt told USA TODAY that Pike's case has more nuance as she warned lawyers that lethal injection would not be a good option due to her condition.
Afton Pratt covers trending and breaking news for Knox News and Tennessee. She can be reached at ampratt@usatodayco.com.
This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Christa Pike surviving lethal injection may be unprecedented. The execution method's high fail rate is not
