Inside possible Christa Pike second execution and decision that could spare her

Inside possible Christa Pike second execution and decision that could spare her WARNING: DISTRESSING CONTENT. Christa Pike is said to be awake and speaking after her botched lethal injection. But what comes next for a death row inmate who has survived their own execution? Her lawyers were told she was brain dead, but now condemned murderer Christa Pike is 'up and walking' around her hospital room in a medical mystery few can comprehend. Pike, sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, would have been the first woman to be executed in Tennessee for 200 years if she hadn't survived two rounds of the lethal injection. It's a case that fiercely divided opinion even before entering this unchartered territory. The brutality of Pike's crime, which saw Colleen tortured for 30 minutes before Pike crushed her skull, means many, including the victim's family, feel the sentence should have been carried out decades ago. Then there are those who argue that Pike, a teenage rape survivor with unmedicated mental health issues at the time of the murder, should be granted clemency in light of the abuse she herself had suffered. It's a topic that's grown ever more complex in recent days. Now, questions have been raised as to what happens next for a person who has survived their execution, and whether there are even any measures in place for such a freak occurrence. The 50-year-old survived two doses of pentobarbital. Commonly used for Death Row executions in the US, condemned inmates injected with lethal doses of pentobarbital will typically slip into a deep unconsciousness in a matter of seconds, before entering respiratory arrest. This, however, was not the case for Pike, who, to the amazement of those watching on from the viewing gallery, was observed snoring and then whimpering in pain after she uttered what they'd assumed had been her last words. In a startling turn of events, Pike was rushed to a Nashville-area hospital as medics tried to clear the drugs from her body. Addressing whether a second attempt would be made, the Death Penalty Information Center's executive director Robin Maher told USA Today that it's "uncharted territory". "The US Supreme Court has not decided whether a second execution attempt would violate the constitution since 1947," she said. All executions in Tennessee have been halted until the end of the year while an investigation is carried out, and Pike's legal team has said it plans to call for her sentence to be commuted to life in jail. But how likely is a second attempt and would they use the same method again? Ahead of her execution, Pike and her team had argued against her dying by lethal injection, stating that she has small, difficult-to-access veins, as well as thrombocytosis, a blood disorder which can increase the risk of blood clots. Pike instead requested death by firing squad or hanging but both were denied as the state does not have the facilities for hanging or permit the use of a firing squad. That would leave the only option as the electric chair. 'Extraordinary injuries' One of Pike's lawyers, Randy Spivey, said on Wednesday that his client has suffered "extraordinary" swelling to her hands, which he described as looking like "if you tried to blow up a surgical glove". The killer also woke up with a blood clot and pneumonia, and was unable to swallow, eat or move her badly swollen arms. "I don't know what function she will regain," he revealed. "We do know that there is a long road ahead". Speaking with BBC News, Dr Joel Zivot, the anaesthesiologist advising her team, revealed: "She has some memories of being in the hospital but no memory, I believe, of the execution attempt." Dr Zivot added that, while Pike was communicating in a "basic way" and could recall her name shortly after waking up, she believed it was still September. Another member of her legal team, attorney Stephen Farrell, told Radio 4 today that while the full picture of Pike's recovery has yet to emerge, she is doing "fairly well". "What's been described to me is that there’s quite a bit going on, that her arms are very injured, she’s unable to use them very much," he said. "She is up and walking for the first time today, just around the room, not very far. She's back, she's alive, we're happy about that, but she's not mentally fully recovered. Information about her mental or neurological condition has yet to be made public, but under the US constitutional law, a prisoner deemed legally incompetent cannot be executed. Tennessee also recognises that an inmate cannot be executed if they don't have the mental capacity needed to fully comprehend their punishment. Maya Foa, CEO of international legal action and human rights organisation Reprieve, tells The Mirror: "Theoretically, under the Constitution and the law in the US, you should not execute somebody who is what they call incompetent to be executed, so they don't understand what the state is about to do or why. If she has suffered severe brain damage as a result of the process, she may be found to be incompetent to be executed at that stage." As for the method, she believes the controversy surrounding it could lead to a different means being chosen, if a second execution was ordered. "States are also being forced to recognise and reckon with the reality of lethal injection, which is that it is a broken method. It is not a method that has ever been what it pretended to be, which was smooth, medical, humane. It is none of those things," she said. "And so there are other execution methods on the table. States prefer lethal injection because they like this veneer of a medical process that it grants them. But the more the public sees the reality, as we saw with Christa Pike, the less I think they will have an appetite for this and indeed other, more obviously brutal methods." Under US President Donald Trump's second term, there has been a renewed focus on what the US Department of Justice describes as prioritising "seeking death sentences in appropriate cases, promptly carrying out those sentences, and strengthening the death penalty". Just this week, Trump ordered a firing squad to execute Nidal Hasan, an ex-US Army psychiatrist who killed 13 people in Fort Hood, Texas, in a 2009 rampage. This marks the military's first execution by firing squad since the death of Army Private Eddie Slovik back in 1945. Meanwhile, Pike's legal team could also renew its appeal for clemency. Pike's would-be execution proceeded despite multiple challenges from her legal team, who asked the state to take into account her age at the time of the killing, as well as her mental illness and history of childhood sexual abuse. It was argued that jurors didn't get the opportunity to weigh this mitigating evidence back in 1996, before handing down the death sentence. In a recent clemency petition, Pike stated that she'd intended to beat Colleen, not kill her, but that she'd been unable to "put the brakes on". Pike previously said: "I was a mentally ill 18-year-old kid. It took me numerous years to even realise the gravity of what I'd done. Even more to accept how many lives I affected. I took the life of someone's child, sister, friend. It sickens me now to think I had the ability to commit such a crime." Ms Foa explains that the decision will ultimately sit with state govenor Bill Lee. "The governor can grant clemency. The governor decided not to grant clemency, so it could be a legal process, or it could be an executive action," she said. "In this case, it would be Governor Lee acknowledging the harm that has been done to her, in the context of the crime, but saying she has been punished now enough and we are not going to seek to execute her a second time. And he has said that he will have an independent review conducted of the death penalty in his state. That will be to look at what went wrong here and in general with this method." Going forward, Ms Foa believes this incident will shift perspectives on the death penalty, stripping back the "culture of secrecy around lethal injection". She continued: "I've worked on lethal injection issues for well over a decade and a half, and one of the very interesting things about lethal injection in the US specifically is that there's the highest support for capital punishment if lethal injection is the method. "When you talk about other methods of execution, such as firing squad, gas, electric chair, support for the death penalty goes down. Which tells us something. It tells us that this myth of the humane, medicalised execution, which is the way the lethal injection has been presented to the public, not the reality of it, has sustained support for the death penalty. "Now, if the public is exposed to what is really happening on the journey behind the execution curtain, as they were to a degree with Christa Pike's execution, it's undeniable that support for the death penalty will go down. I see that in conversations I have with people where you describe what really goes on, and it's not as people thought it to be, and the more you learn, the less you want it." Do you have a story to share? Email me at [email protected]