On Sept. 30, Tennessee plans to execute a woman by lethal injection for the first time in the state’s history. This is no ordinary death penalty case. Christa Pike was sexually abused, raped and beaten by a series of men from the time she was a toddler until, at the age of 18, she committed the crime that would send her to death row. In a recent court hearing, a lawyer for the state of Tennesseesaid: “I think we all wish that we were not here today and that [Christa Pike] was not on death row.”
During Pike’s appeals hearings, a clinical psychologist testified that when prison guards strap her to the gurney and immobilize her limbs, it is very likely
to trigger a flashback that will cause her to relive the rapes she endured as a child and teenager. As a group of experts in the field of sexual violence explained in alegal brief filed in the case, Pike will likely feel and believe “that she is being raped to death.” This evidence is not in dispute. But so far, the Tennessee courts have not been willing to halt the execution.
The evidence the jury never heard
How did Pike’s case get this far? After all, Tennessee courts have overturned the death sentences of seven men who – like Christa – were adolescents at the time they committed murder. The answer to that question lies in the enduring failure of the legal system to give proper weight to women’s experiences of gender-based violence.
Pike’s trial lawyer never told the jury about her nightmarish childhood, the older man who orally raped her when she was a preschooler, the neighbor who raped her when she was 11 or the stranger who raped her when she was 17. This is precisely the sort of catastrophic, inexcusable lapse in judgment that violates a defendant’s right to effective legal representation. But instead of granting Pike a new trial, the Tennessee court denied her appeal. Why? Because, the court reasoned, Pike’s own parents didn’t believe her when she told them about one of her rapes.
The consequences of not believing survivors
Yet as anyone who works with victims of child sexual abuse will attest, adults often struggle to believe children’s accounts of molestation. In Pike’s case, moreover, police reports and hospital records corroborated the rapes. It seems that Pike experienced what some call the “credibility discount,” which is the phenomenon of questioning whether women have actually experienced rape and other forms of gender-based violence when they attempt to seek justice. Not only did her parents disbelieve her, but ultimately the court failed to recognize the significance of the events that shaped Pike’s life and led to lifelong post-traumatic stress disorder.
Evidence shows that misconceptions about sexual violence can undermine fair decision-making in the courts. TheNational Judicial Education Program has found that jurors and court professionals can carry deeply rooted assumptions about sexual assault, victims and gender roles into their evaluations of evidence, which undermines objective fact-finding processes. These misconceptions and personal moral evaluations of Pike’s traumatic history clouded her right to due process at every step of the way.
Tennessee faces a final chance to act
Tennessee says that it believes child victims of sexual abuse. The state claims that it cares about them so much that it has passed legislation imposing the death penalty for child rape.
Yet in just a few days, the state plans to execute one of those child victims. The legal system has failed Pike at every turn. That is why Gov. Bill Lee must now commute her sentence before it is too late.
Azaleea Carlea is the legal director of Legal Momentum, the nation’s longest-running legal defense and education fund for women and girls. Sandra Babcock is a clinical professor at Cornell Law School and author of “Gendered Capital Punishment.”
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Tennessee failed Christa Pike long before her execution date | Opinion
