Judges in Tennessee halted Christa Pike’s execution a little more than an hour before it was scheduled. The court said it needed more time to examine arguments from her defense; the duration of the pause was not clear. Had the execution proceeded, Pike would have been the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years.
Pike, 50, has been on death row since 1996 for the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer. Her lawyers challenged the state’s lethal-injection protocol, arguing it could cause more suffering than necessary and would violate the US Constitution.
The defense also cited a change in the state’s position on Pike’s childhood abuse. Prosecutors had for years disputed her account of sexual abuse, but at a recent hearing the state said it did not contest that she had been sexually abused and raped as a child. Her attorneys argue earlier court decisions may have been based on an incomplete assessment. The Tennessee Supreme Court ruled last year that Pike had not established grounds to reduce her sentence.
The US Supreme Court had rejected an earlier bid to delay the execution, and Tennessee’s governor denied clemency. The state attorney general called the latest pause a technical issue and said the state would continue defending the final sentence; Tennessee has asked the US Supreme Court to lift the stay.
Pike was 18 when she and 17-year-old Tadaryl Shipp attacked, tortured and killed Slemmer in 1995. Shipp received life imprisonment with the possibility of parole. Pike denies carving a pentagram on the victim’s chest. Two other participants in a youth program later testified that Pike had bragged about the killing. Her childhood record includes sexual abuse, abandonment and neglect.