Execution of Christa Pike Approved by Tennessee Supreme Court

The Supreme Court has ruled that Tennessee can proceed with the execution of convicted murderer Christa Pike.

On Wednesday, the court decided to lift the execution stay that had been imposed just one hour prior to her scheduled lethal injection. Dissenting justices included Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Pike’s legal team attempted to have her sentence commuted to life in prison. They argued that her previous attorneys neglected to present evidence of her history of sexual abuse and mental health challenges. This argument led to the execution being halted just an hour before the planned lethal injection.

Justice Sotomayor, in her dissent, remarked that the decision to vacate the stay “interferes with the Sixth Circuit’s routine administrative handling of a capital case and unnecessarily prevents the court from giving due consideration to Pike’s claim.”

She further stated, “I see no reason to short-circuit the ordinary process of appellate review, especially given the serious consequences of an incorrect ruling.”

If carried out, Pike would become the first woman in over 200 years to face execution in Tennessee.

Pike was convicted for the brutal murder of her classmate, Colleen Slemmer, in 1995. In a horrific act, she struck Slemmer in the head with a piece of asphalt, carved a pentagram into her chest, and kept a fragment of her skull as a trophy, leading to her death sentence.

According to court documents, Pike was sexually abused by her grandmother’s boyfriend before she reached preschool, suffered rape by a neighbor at age 11, and endured another assault by a stranger at 17. She reportedly deals with bipolar disorder and PTSD.