The U.S. Supreme Court will not stop Christa Pike's impending execution.
Unless Gov. Bill Lee reverses course and decides to intervene, Pike will be executed. She is scheduled to be killed by lethal injection at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville at 10 a.m. Sept. 30.
Pike's attorneys brought the case to the court Sept. 25, their last hope after suffering several losses in other courts. They argued Pike's death at the hands of male executioners will be unconstitutionally cruel because she was repeatedly raped as a minor. Pike, diagnosed with PTSD, would suffer flashbacks in the execution chamber, they wrote.
Pike was sentenced to death for the 1995 torture and killing of Colleen Slemmer in Knoxville. Slemmer was 19 at her death.
Pike was 18, the youngest age at which someone can be sentenced to death. If her execution happens, she will be the first person put to death in Tennessee for a crime committed at age 18 since capital punishment was reinstated in 1976.
Have questions about the justice system? Evan Mealins is the justice reporter for The Tennessean. Contact him with questions, tips or story ideas at emealins@tennessean.com.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: US Supreme Court declines to stop Christa Pike's execution
