Christa Pike, the only woman on Tennessee’s death row, formally chose electrocution as her execution method.
Here are the key details behind that decision:
Tennessee Law & Grandfather Clause: Under Tennessee state law, inmates whose capital offences were committed before January 1, 1999, are permitted to choose the electric chair instead of the state’s default method, lethal injection. Pike was convicted and sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer (Pike was 18 at the time of the crime).
The Legal Request: Through her legal representation, Pike formally submitted paperwork electing electrocution rather than lethal injection when facing execution scheduling in 2022.
The Statewide Execution Moratorium: In 2022, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee suspended all executions and ordered an independent investigation after prison officials discovered they had repeatedly failed to test lethal injection chemicals for contamination and potency. That halt effectively froze all pending execution proceedings across the state, including Pike’s.
Somehow between 2022 and 2026 Christa Pike’s right ot choose the Electric Chair has been “forgotten” and, well, you know the rest…
Image
Source – MG_5863
Author – David from Washington, DC
Licence – Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en
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