Tennessee failed to execute death row inmate Christa Pike after she survived two rounds of lethal injection drugs on Wednesday.
Pike, 50, was taken to a hospital after the execution attempt at a prison in Nashville. Her lawyers said they did not know her condition.
The Tennessee Department of Correction said Pike was “transported to an off-site medical facility” but did not immediately confirm whether she was alive.
Christa Pike is the only woman on Tennessee’s death row. She was sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of her 19-year-old classmate, Colleen Slemmer. Pike was 18 when she committed the crime.
Witnesses said Pike complained of pain during the execution.
At about 7:34 p.m., she was heard saying: “My arm feels like it’s about to burst open.”
Her lawyers later told a federal court that officials had administered both syringes of lethal drugs but Pike remained conscious and had a heartbeat.
Witnesses also said they heard Pike snoring after the second dose was given at about 8 p.m.
Tori Gessner, a WKRN reporter who has witnessed five executions in Tennessee, said: “Nothing about today was normal, typical, at all.”
John North, an investigative producer at WBIR, said: “It appeared that this did not go like they thought it was supposed to go.”
The Department of Correction said the state followed its approved execution procedure.
A spokesperson said the state “followed every step of the State’s lawful, established execution protocol approved by the Attorney General’s Office” and that “the lethal injection chemical in the protocol has consistently been effective.”
Governor Bill Lee ordered a “comprehensive, third-party review to determine exactly what occurred.”
He also said Tennessee’s remaining scheduled execution for this year would not go ahead as planned.
Victim’s mother reacts
Slemmer’s mother, May Martinez, criticised the failed execution attempt.
“It was a mess,” Martinez told NBC News.
“They went to try to execute her, and she didn’t die,” she said.
Martinez also criticised officials for failing to properly inform victims’ families about what was happening.
Christa Pike’s lawyers said: “Tonight the State of Tennessee once again failed to carry out a lawful execution.”
The execution had gone ahead after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a lower court order that temporarily blocked it.
Three justices — Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson — dissented from the decision.
Pike’s lawyers had argued that courts should consider allegations that she suffered severe sexual abuse as a child, as well as her age and mental health at the time of Slemmer’s murder.
Pike has said: “I was a mentally ill 18-year-old kid. It took me numerous years to even realize the gravity of what I’d done.”
Before Governor Lee rejected her clemency request, Pike wrote: “Whether my clemency is granted or not, I am at peace.”
“I am not afraid to die,” she added. “I’m only nervous about the process.”
Legal expert Austin Sarat said Christa Pike’s case was highly unusual. He said fewer than 10 true failed executions had occurred in the United States over the past 80 years.
Tennessee has faced another failed execution attempt this year. In May, officials could not find a vein for a backup IV for death row inmate Tony Carruthers, who later received a one-year reprieve.
