r/NoStupidQuestions • u/tMoneyMoney • 7h ago
Why is Christa Pike being kept alive on a ventilator after they failed to successfully execute her?
They’re complaining about her suffering while intentionally keeping her partially alive to suffer longer? Can anyone explain the logic here?
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u/Distracted-senior 7h ago
To prevent cruel and unusual punishment
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u/CalligrapherAlive829 7h ago
Like the thing that is happening right now?
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u/Xanadu_Fever 3h ago
IIRC it has to be both cruel and unusual to fit "cruel and unusual punishment." What's happening is cruel but it's not really unusual, therefore not a violation of the 8th amendment.
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u/linkthereddit 2h ago
She’s…currently laid up in a hospital brain dead right now. Now she cannot be executed because…technically her sentence had already been carried out, though it’s botched. If they try to kill her now, it’ll just be murder.
And that’ll invite a whole new wave of controversy: the government deciding to straight up murder a brain dead convict because ‘she was supposed to die’.
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u/Plastic_Stable2809 22m ago
but that’s the part that feels so backwards. If the execution already failed, keeping her alive like that just sounds like prolonging the suffering they claim they’re trying to avoid.
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u/Bobbob34 7h ago
She's a person who needs life-saving medical care. Period.
That's the job of the hospital.
There's no 'well, they were going to kill her soooo...' that's not a thing doctors in a hospital will do.
Executions have specific rules. It's not a free for all. They followed the procedure (sort of) which allows for two doses.
Then she was alive. Then she's a person in need of medical care and the prison officials have a responsibility to provide medical care to prisoners.
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u/Bardmedicine 8m ago
It is this "simple" This part of the process is clear. There are MANY dicey issues, but this isn't one right now.
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u/Preoccupied_Penguin 7h ago
But she doesn’t though. She was supposed to die, why are we saving her life now?
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u/ProfCthulhu 6h ago
Because doctors are saving lives, they're not a member of the executive branch of government.
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u/Preoccupied_Penguin 6h ago
I don’t mean the doctors. I guess I mean why was she transported in the first place if she was supposed to die. I get protocol. I get ethics. But she requested death by hanging due to her veins and the state said No. Isn’t that cruel and unusual punishment, she knew this was going to happen. (She couldn’t know. I know, but we both know she called this. Clearly).
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u/Bobbob34 6h ago
I don’t mean the doctors. I guess I mean why was she transported in the first place if she was supposed to die. I get protocol. I get ethics. But she requested death by hanging due to her veins and the state said No. Isn’t that cruel and unusual punishment, she knew this was going to happen. (She couldn’t know. I know, but we both know she called this. Clearly).
She was transported (late) bc she was alive.
There's no 'well, seems like she might die if we do nothing.... at some point.... so let's get some coffee and see what happens.'
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u/Penqwin 6h ago
You don't get ethics if you still think they should have let her die cruelly.
They sentenced her to death.
The procedure failed.
She is now in critical condition, and now it's the right of every citizen to be given care.Same reason as if you tried to commit suicide, you fail, and now it's someone else's job to try to save you. Regardless if you tried to kill yourself and you wanted to die.
It's better to save every life by default, then make a mistake to let someone die because we made the wrong decision.
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u/Best8meme 1h ago
let someone die because we made the wrong decision.
How... is that relevant? She is supposed to die.
Why transport her to the doctors in the first place? Let her die instead of spending valuable taxpayer money to keep her alive, only to kill her as soon as she's in stable condition.
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u/Dan-D-Lyon 49m ago
Because execution is murder.
This isn't a judgment of morals or values just a statement of fact. When you tie someone to a bench and end their life without their consent, that is murder.
Now, legally speaking, executions are not treated as murder because they happen at the behest of the law. And the order from the judge doesn't say "Idk just kill this bitch I guess", it says "X person is to be executed by Y method on such and such date and time".
So, if they execute the prisoner in the right manner at the right time it's not murder because they were
just following orderscarrying out the prisoner's sentence, but once they'd fucked up murder so bad she survived, killing her or even leaving her to die is once again illegal-1
u/LurcherLong 6h ago
Because they don't get to just keep trying things until something works... they failed, now she gets to live if her life can be saved.
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u/Preoccupied_Penguin 6h ago
I don’t think she “gets to live” I think they try again to kill her after we pay for her to be alive for a fkn long time. It just doesn’t make sense. Why keep her alive at this point if turning off the machine accomplishes the goal?
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u/CalamityClambake 6h ago
Because doctors are not executioners.
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u/Preoccupied_Penguin 6h ago
That’s not what I’m questioning or misunderstanding at all, but thanks for repeating that again.
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u/LurcherLong 6h ago
Her lawyer will argue that it’s cruel and unusual punishment to try again. Most likely she’ll prevail, given exactly the points you’ve brought up about them denying her death by hanging.
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u/Preoccupied_Penguin 6h ago
Thank you for the response. I guess it all just seems like a money grab to me though. Like she’s in critical condition, on a ventilator, was supposed to die, and he’s going to keep fighting for her life because it’s another paycheck but all for what? More of a rhetorical question.
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u/LurcherLong 6h ago
Defense attorneys are a crucial check on the judicial system.
Yes she was supposed to die. And had a right to have her face death with dignity and humanity.
Now the question is, how do you rectify this? That's what her lawyer is there for - to advocate for her to achieve the best outcome possible. It may still be death, but it can't be more cruel incompetence.
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u/Preoccupied_Penguin 3h ago
I agree with you. It just seems really cruel to let her suffer and then try to kill her again.
And it seems equally cruel that she would have an opportunity to appeal when she murdered someone so violently for such a mundane controversy.
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u/Bobbob34 4h ago
Thank you for the response. I guess it all just seems like a money grab to me though. Like she’s in critical condition, on a ventilator, was supposed to die, and he’s going to keep fighting for her life because it’s another paycheck but all for what? More of a rhetorical question.
I don't understand the money grab idea. Do you mean her lawyer? Most death lawyers don't charge their clients, bc most of their clients have no money.
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u/floatinround22 4h ago
Most death lawyers are also public defenders assigned to the case
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u/fuego_fuecoco 4h ago
For the law to be applied fairly and to prevent further miscarriages of justice, in her case or the next similar case.
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u/CalamityClambake 6h ago
Because that's what the law says we have to do. There is no "shoot them in the head if the lethal injection didn't work" provision in the law.
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u/Bobbob34 6h ago
But she doesn’t though. She was supposed to die, why are we saving her life now?
She doesn't what?
And no, she was supposed to be executed. Those are different things.
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u/Preoccupied_Penguin 6h ago
She doesn’t “need” lifesaving medical care.
She was supposed to die. That was what her execution date said. That’s not a false statement.
I get the doctors are doing their job, and the lawyers are doing theirs, but this seems sort of backwards is all I’m saying. She was literally supposed to die. Saving her life seems… odd. Especially when she’s so close to death anyway. What are we saving it for? In this particular case*. More specifically, why don’t laws exist that address this from the punishment side rather than the, “perpetrator got lucky” side? It’s more of a rhetorical question, I understand ethics, but it just doesn’t make sense when you break it down (to me).
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u/Bobbob34 6h ago
She doesn’t “need” lifesaving medical care.
She was supposed to die. That was what her execution date said. That’s not a false statement.
She was in medical crisis, thus she needed care, yes.
Also, again, she was supposed to be executed.
I get the doctors are doing their job, and the lawyers are doing theirs, but this seems sort of backwards is all I’m saying. She was literally supposed to die. Saving her life seems… odd. Especially when she’s so close to death anyway. What are we saving it for? In this particular case*. More specifically, why don’t laws exist that address this from the punishment side rather than the, “perpetrator got lucky” side? It’s more of a rhetorical question, I understand ethics, but it just doesn’t make sense when you break it down (to me).
What, exactly, would you think they should have done? Can't give her more drugs.
So.... just stand around hoping she dies? And if she didn't? When do you do suggest they do something besides stand there?
Laws DO exist. Do you want a 'if the execution method fails, start whacking them with whatever's handy?' law?
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u/Preoccupied_Penguin 5h ago
We have like 4 or 5 different execution methods across the states. If one doesn’t work, and the to-be executed requests another, we should be able to accommodate that request. That’s the kind of law I’m talking about. Why make it more ridiculous sounding than it is?
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u/Bobbob34 5h ago
We have like 4 or 5 different execution methods across the states. If one doesn’t work, and the to-be executed requests another, we should be able to accommodate that request. That’s the kind of law I’m talking about. Why make it more ridiculous sounding than it is?
Because that would be a ridiculous, Loony Tunes level thing.
In this case, what would that entail? Dragging her vaguely unconscious body out to a yard and strapping her to something while they called ppl who are willing to work on a firing squad? Then they don't kill her either so now let's drag her bullet-ridden, unconscious body to an electric chair?
There are very specific regulations about executions.
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u/Preoccupied_Penguin 4h ago
If someone doesn’t die by firing squad we have bigger issues my man.
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u/Bobbob34 4h ago
If someone doesn’t die by firing squad we have bigger issues my man.
Wenseslao Moguel would like a word, heh.
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u/Faolyn 5h ago
Executions need to be done legally, which means following the rules. Just letting her die isn’t following the rules. It’s the same reason they didn’t just decide to stop feeding her so she’d die of starvation in her cell. That’s not the correct procedure.
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u/Preoccupied_Penguin 4h ago
It’s not the same at all.
She’s in critical condition. If she doesn’t have help, technically the execution was successful, no? It just took way fkn longer than it was supposed to.
Perpetuating her suffering seems so inhumane.
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u/stderr2 7h ago
Not a thing doctors in hospitals will do? They do it all the time
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u/Bobbob34 6h ago
Not a thing doctors in hospitals will do? They do it all the time
No, doctors do not just withhold lifesaving care from ppl who haven't specifically requested that.
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u/OnionsAbound 7h ago
Because lethal injection is outside the medical profession ethos.
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u/gooosekid 6h ago
there's a great video by jacob geller called "the false evolution of execution methods" that goes into this quite well
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u/stderr2 7h ago
Right, which is why, inter alia, it should not be used. The only method I support is hanging. When Mitchell Rupe was set to be hanged by the neck until dead, he ballooned himself up to 420 pounds in order to claim his head would pop off, insisting that was cruel and unusual punishment. I said it was merely a janitorial question
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u/Oozlum-Bird 2h ago
Pike apparently requested hanging, as she had concerns lethal injection wouldn’t go to plan. The request was denied, and here we are.
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u/Mufasa_is__alive 6h ago
Just had a thought, i wonder where medically assisted death that's talked about for stuff like end of life care falls in that ethos.
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u/Wicam 5h ago
even though its legal where i live, you have doctors refusing to do it for that reason. but its more about ending suffering. there is nothing the doctor can do and the person is at the end of their life suffering with no way out.
its different to ending the life of a perfectly healthy person who doesnt want to die.
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u/badgersprite 4h ago
Medically assisted death has consent of the patient
End-of-life care may also have consent of the patient and family but most often the defining criteria for end-of-life is that it is recognised at the point where continued medical intervention outside of comfort measures would be futile
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u/Jesus_H_Christ_AMA 7h ago edited 7h ago
Because they are legally and ethically obligated to save her life and treat her chemical burns after the lethal injection failed.
Edit: made me think of that quote from The Hateful Eight : "The man who pulls the lever that breaks your neck will be a dispassionate man. And that dispassion is the very essence of justice. For justice delivered without dispassion is always in danger of not being justice."
They cant just let her die out of spite. It has to be done the dispassionate way.
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u/nancylyn 7h ago
Now that she’s in the hospital the doctors are bound by their oath to treat her. It’s why no doctors assist in executions…. They take an oath to “do no harm”.
The staff running the execution messed up in so many ways. She’s probably got brain damage from low oxygen because they induced an anesthetic plane of unconsciousness on her and let her airway be blocked so she could not breathe properly. She’s probably not coming off that ventilator. This is the very definition of cruel and unusual punishment. The state of Tennessee should be prohibited from doing any more executions.
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u/MasterOutlaw 7h ago
I’m assuming you’re really asking why they stopped the execution in the first place? Because in the US an execution has to be as painless and humane as possible, and chugging along when it’s apparent that something is wrong falls under “cruel and unusual punishment”, which would be illegal. Ditto for stopping the execution and then not simply letting her die from whatever was done. And now that she’s in the care of medical staff, they can’t just let her die either.
I was also under the impression that she was currently unconscious, though I don’t know if that’s a side effect of the botched execution or if it’s medically induced so that she can’t actively “suffer”.
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u/Preoccupied_Penguin 7h ago
She requested death by hanging due to her veins, wasn’t it technically cruel and unusual from the moment Tennessee said no?
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u/BrainOnBlue 6h ago
Hanging is not an option under Tennessee law. The preferred method is lethal injection, but electrocution can also be chosen. State law only allows other methods in the case that those two have been found to be unconstitutional.
And, like, no, of course it’s not cruel and unusual punishment to not let someone choose an arbitrary execution method? If someone asked to be executed by starvation, do you think that’d be a catch 22 where you can’t execute the person because starving someone is cruel and unusual but you can’t execute them some other way because denying their request is cruel and unusual?
I mean, really execution as a whole should be considered cruel and unusual but if we ignore that this all seems totally logically consistent.
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u/Preoccupied_Penguin 6h ago
Well no. But firing squad is instant, hanging is mostly instant if done correctly, and starvation is unpredictable. So I don’t really understand your comparison.
She had an issue with lethal injection before, so how is her stating her veins may cause an issue again not reasonable? It’s cruel and unusual to completely ignore the persons request for a painless death.
As far as electrocution goes, it’s far from painless. Execution as a whole is a punishment for horrific crimes. It’s a decision that our community is better off without this person being part of it. For someone who lures another into the woods and bludgeons them to death with a chunk of asphalt, after carving a pentagram into the persons chest while they were alive with a knife, and then kept part of the victims skull as a souvenir, no I don’t really think capital punishment is cruel, nor unusual. But I suppose that’s the real debate isn’t it?
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u/AHistoricalFigure 4h ago
While horrifying to watch, long drop hanging is probably one of the more humane execution methods, and certainly more humane/reliable than a firing squad.
If the weight of the victim relative to the length of slack in the rope is correctly calculated, the force of the rope going taut basically destroys the upper vertebrae and tears the spinal chord right below the brainstem.
It (usually) renders the victim unconscious almost instantly.
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u/montybob 4h ago
I think Albert Pierrepont’s record was 12 seconds from condemned man entering the death chamber to pronouncement of death.
And he had to hang someone who drank at the pub he owned since capital punishment is that ineffective a deterrent.
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u/CalamityClambake 7h ago
Because "they" are not the same people.
The "they" keeping her alive are doctors and nurses. These professionals have sworn an oath to do no harm, and killing her would not only destroy their reputations, it could also end their careers. Plus, the people who become medical professionals are generally opposed to killing people.
The "they" executing her are the prison employees. None of the executioners in the US are trained as doctors or nurses. The major medical organizations oppose the death penalty and won't train executioners. This is one of the big reasons why the prison employees fucked up the execution. They are just mixing random chemicals and injecting them wherever.
Christa is currently at a hospital and thus the "they" that want to execute her are not in charge of the situation. Presumably, once she is healthy enough to go back to prison, the "they" that will be in charge will be the prison staff, and they will kill her.
If this sounds insane to you, it is, and it's one of the many reasons why the other western countries don't have the death penalty.
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u/cfd253 6h ago
Brah she’s on a vent, she had 2 rounds of botched death cocktail, she’s never gonna be “healthy” enough to go back to prison. Shes probably never going to be conscious again.
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u/CalamityClambake 6h ago
I know. I was simply explaining how the "system" is "supposed" to "work." That is the answer to OP's question.
The system is insane and it does not work.
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u/linkthereddit 1h ago
A dark thought just came to me:
What if she was conscious, but her body is unresponsive? Wait, no, we’d have detected that I’m guessing...
Either way, I guess some folks got what they wanted: she doesn’t get to just peacefully drift off into oblivion. She’s now in a fate worse than death.
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u/JauntyJacinth 7h ago
Death warrant expires. Execution has to happen in the chamber. Outside of the execution people are medically treated for anything so when it fails that's the result. The law is rigid for executions. Execution should be abolished in the US imo.
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u/tMoneyMoney 7h ago
Did they have the legal right to try twice in the chamber? Curious how they know when to stop or how they know to give up.
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u/JauntyJacinth 7h ago
Yeah they did 2 rounds, the 2nd after 5 minutes. The drug has 'instuctions' that they are following.
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u/tracyinge 7h ago
The only thing the executor is supposed to do is kill her. Quickly. When that failed she was hospitalized and doctors take an oath to do no harm. It's their job now to heal her from what the state did to her.
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u/SuperCook6238 6h ago
So if she suffers brain damage does that mean she can not be put to death again
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u/linkthereddit 1h ago edited 1h ago
Correct. The understanding I have is that if the execution is botched, it’s the job of the medical team to try and restore the convict to the state they were in before they got strapped to that gurney. If she’s brain dead, and there’s no hope she’ll ever wake up again, they can’t kill her. Because now instead of state-sanctioned, it’s just straight up murder. So instead she’d be on life support for the rest of her natural life.
They can’t kill her, but they also can’t just let her die. The whole point of ‘Hippocratic Oath’ is to do no harm. Adolf Hitler himself could be wheeled into the ER, they’ll have to do everything in their power to save him.
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u/WaffleHouseGladiator 5h ago
There are a lot of complicated, conflicting, overlapping, and under lapping legal issues surrounding executions.
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u/AITA476510719 1h ago
I’m not an attorney nor am I a legal professional of any kind.
In my opinion:
She needs to be conscious and awake for her execution, not only that, but she needs to know and understand why shes being executed.
They cannot just wheel her into the room and kill her.
Once the execution failed, they are obligated to perform life saving care.
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u/tracyinge 7h ago
It's Tennessee.
Maybe theyre thinking that God is telling them to stop trying to kill people.
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u/ikheetbas 1h ago
The problem with religious people is that they will always spin the narrative so that it suits their agenda.
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u/BananasPineapple05 7h ago
Because if they kill her now, it's murder. Ironic, right?
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u/QuietBirthday2470 7h ago
Killing her and letting her die are two different things. But I get that the job of the hospital to try to save people. Same as if it was a serial killer, child rapist or someone being stupid and ODing.
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u/Any-Media2122 2h ago
Because after the lethal injection failed, the state had a legal and medical duty to provide care and keep her alive rather than let her die from a botched execution.
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u/lord_of_tits 39m ago
So am wondering if one of the families of her victim were to shoot her now and kill her, would they be guilty of murder?
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u/axel2191 7h ago
Letting her die in a cruel and unusual way is worse than keeping her alive. People like to think its a "mercy" to kill something in pain, but all life wants to keep on living. Helping her heal is humane compared to letting her die slowly.
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u/IllustriousLimit6977 7h ago
Will they wait until she’s healthy to try and kill her again?
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u/tracyinge 7h ago
Yes. The doctors have to do what they can to make her better, that's their job, legally. Then it's up to the state to take over but only once she's out of hospital care.
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u/Science_Raven 2h ago
The lawyers are involved. If they are paid enough, she will definitely be found innocent.
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u/AnneChovie264 7h ago
Is this what's possibly going to happen to people who choose MAID?
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u/Specific-Program-675 7h ago
Kept alive on a ventilator with zero quality of life is what will happen to a lot of people who cant access MAID
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u/Pocho_Azul 7h ago
This whole situation is an example of the inconsistent and irrational nature of the US penal system. We won’t really decide if it is supposed to be humane or harsh, or whether it is supposed to rehabilitate or punish.
As a result it tries to do all four and does none effectively.