The month before the state of Tennessee tried unsuccessfully to execute Christa Pike,her legal team argued for an alternate to standard lethal injection, saying the usual protocol would be fraught with problems.
Attorneys argued that her small veins and her blood disorder, called thrombocytosis, would cause needless suffering, and so argued for an alternative to standard lethal injection: either a central line in the jugular vein of her neck, rather than her arm, or hanging.
"Start with the central line," said Stephen Ferrell, Federal Defender Services of Eastern Tennessee, who represented Pike. "It makes the execution less torturous. It is available and easily implemented ... It would lessen the pain and suffering."
Hanging, the legal team argued,
would cause death quicker with less suffering.
Those requests were denied. Tennessee stopped the practice of hanging death row inmates more than 100 years ago, and the central-line method also carries risks, the state argued. The central line method also would require training for a doctor, which would have slowed down the process of executing Pike.
"Hanging is an unpredictable way of causing death," said Assistant Attorney General for the State of Tennessee Will Ayers. "It's not easy to do right. There is no evidence that Tennessee has the materials or expertise to carry out a hanging."
After the Sept. 30 execution attempt failed, emergency vehicles rushed to the prison site, and Pike was taken to an area hospital. Her location and condition remained unclear Oct. 1.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Christa Pike wanted an alternate execution method, but state denied the request
