Christa Pike's lawyers to appear in court after failed execution: Updates

Attorneys for Christa Pike are fighting for the preservation of relevant evidence from her failed execution attempt on Sept. 30. A Davidson County Chancery Court hearing to address their request is set for the morning of Oct. 7.

Presiding over the hearing is Chancellor I'Ashea Myles.

In an emergency motion filed Oct. 2, Pike's legal team outlined what kind of evidence they want preserved. The list includes medical materials used in the execution attempt, surveillance footage, training and employment records of the IV team, communications regarding the decision to call for emergency medical care, and more.

Attorneys are also asking to be granted access to Pike to independently document her medical condition.

Pike was sentenced to death for the 1995

murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in Knoxville. She was set to be executed by lethal injection on Sept. 30 in Nashville, but she survived two doses of pentobarbital, the drug used in the Tennessee Department of Correction lethal injection protocol. She was admitted to a Nashville-area hospital and is on a ventilator.

Gov. Bill Lee paused executions and ordered an independent review. TDOC Commissioner Frank Strada resigned from the role on Oct. 3, and an interim commissioner will be appointed by Lee.

State argues motion to preserve evidence is unnecessary

06:10 AM ET, October 7 2026, Molly Davis

In a response to the emergency motion from Christa Pike's attorneys, Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti argued the request should be dismissed, in part because the corrections department is already broadly obligated to preserve evidence in cases like this.

The response, filed around 5 p.m. Oct. 6, also argued the evidence requested by attorneys is not relevant in the corresponding lawsuit, which was originally filed in January to challenge the constitutionality of the state's lethal injection protocol.

The response calls Pike's motion "duplicative and unnecessary."

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Christa Pike's lawyers to appear in court after failed execution: Updates