There is something almost uniquely American about attempting to execute a woman, discovering that she is still alive after two doses of lethal injection, rushing her to hospital to save her life — and then having to begin a legal discussion about whether the state might eventually be allowed another go.
Christa Pike was sentenced to death for the brutal 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer. There is no need to sanitise that crime or turn Pike into a saint. She was convicted, sentenced, spent three decades on death row, exhausted numerous legal challenges, and on 30 September Tennessee finally attempted to carry out the sentence. Two doses of pentobarbital were administered. Pike remained alive and was taken away for medical treatment.
The State Sentenced Her to Death. Reality Appears to Have Filed an Appeal.
For a country in which God is regularly invited into politics, courtrooms and public morality, this does raise one awkward theological administrative problem.
If you believe that life and death ultimately sit in God’s hands, what exactly are you supposed to make of this?
The state decided Pike should die. Courts considered the matter for decades. The machinery was prepared. The chemicals were administered. Not once, but twice.
And she lived.
Now, obviously, American constitutional law does not contain a section entitled Divine Intervention: Procedure Following Unsuccessful Lethal Injection. Judges cannot simply write, “God appears to have overruled Tennessee, case closed.”
But the contradiction is difficult to ignore.
Millions of Americans sincerely believe that God determines when human life begins and ends. Politicians invoke Him constantly. Presidents ask Him to bless America. Legislators quote scripture. Campaigners invoke divine authority on abortion, marriage, sexuality and almost every other moral argument available.
Yet when the machinery of the state attempts to kill somebody and fails, apparently heaven’s jurisdiction suddenly becomes rather less important.
Tennessee Governor Bill Lee has now suspended executions for the remainder of the year and ordered an independent review into what happened. The immediate official question is therefore largely procedural: why did the execution fail, were protocols followed, and can Tennessee’s execution system operate lawfully and effectively?
That is the bureaucratic answer.
But there is a much bigger human question sitting underneath it.
What exactly is justice supposed to achieve now?
Pike has already spent roughly thirty years awaiting execution. The state then strapped her down and administered drugs intended to kill her. Witnesses reported that she was still breathing afterwards, and she ultimately required medical treatment. Her lawyers are arguing that what happened raises constitutional issues concerning cruel and unusual punishment.
So America now enters that familiar territory where something astonishing happens and the response is an investigation.
There will be reports.
There will be experts.
There will be hearings.
Somebody will examine syringes, procedures, dosages, paperwork and protocols.
Eventually a document will presumably explain why the government successfully completed every administrative stage of killing somebody except the inconvenient final stage where the person actually dies.
And then what?
That is the question.
Does justice require Tennessee eventually to strap the same woman down again and try harder?
Does surviving an execution attempt change anything legally, morally or constitutionally?
Or is the state’s obligation simply to repair the machinery and continue until it produces the result written on the paperwork?
Those are no longer theoretical questions. Reports on Thursday said Pike remained alive following Tennessee’s failed execution attempt, while her future legal position was unresolved.
Nobody needs to forget Colleen Slemmer to ask them. Her murder was horrific, and her family has lived with its consequences for more than three decades. Justice must include victims.
But justice is also supposed to distinguish itself from vengeance.
And somewhere between the execution chamber and the ambulance, America has stumbled into one of the strangest moral dilemmas imaginable.
The government decided a woman must die.
The government tried to kill her.
She survived.
The government then helped keep her alive.
Perhaps the most uncomfortable question is not whether Tennessee can attempt another execution.
It is whether, after everything that has happened, anybody can explain precisely what another attempt would accomplish beyond proving that the state eventually managed to finish the job.
🔥 Challenges: If a state carries out an execution properly authorised by its courts but the prisoner survives, should that failed attempt change what happens next — legally, morally or both? And for those who believe life and death ultimately rest with God, does survival have any meaning at all? Tell us what you think specifically on the Chameleon News blog.
Comment. Like. Share. And tell us where justice ends and vengeance begins.
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