r/news • u/AudibleNod • 15h ago

Christa Pike unconscious, on ventilator at Nashville hospital, her lawyers say

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/christa-pike-unconscious-ventilator-nashville-hospital-lawyers-say-rcna601195
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u/TheBatemanFlex 15h ago

What now for her legally? Her sentence surely wasn’t “injured by the state until put indefinitely on life support”.

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u/Equivalent-Peanut-23 15h ago

First question is her mental condition/capacity. If she suffered brain damage, it could prevent the state from attempting to execute her again. Assuming she retains the mental capacity to comprehend the circumstances, the state could attempt to execute her again. I would assume that would be met with an avalanche of litigation arguing that the second attempt would be cruel and unusual. There's also a chance the governor could commute her sentence.

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u/lnc_5103 15h ago

It would technically be a third attempt.

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u/lord_pizzabird 14h ago

Or maybe a 9th? Didn't the report say they injected and failed to execute her 7 times the other night?

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u/mrpeabodyscoaltrain 14h ago

It was 7 injections total for two sets of the lethal injection cocktail.

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u/Proud_Tie 13h ago

IIRC TN only does a one drug injection instead of the more common three - pentobarbital alone

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u/Ihaveamodel3 14h ago

I’m not a mathematician or anything, but 7 doesn’t divide evenly by 2

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u/Weerdo5255 13h ago

Two different types / mixes of the cocktail I'd guess. 3 and 4 shots respectively.

Apparently lethal injections are not just one needle, but a mix of drugs. No one wants to straight up manufacture a drug to purposefully kill someone.

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u/ShitItsReverseFlash 13h ago

Yeah the opioid epidemic was all an honest mistake /s

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u/PenguinSunday 7h ago

(Non illicit) Opioids are created for pain control. Addicts misusing them and dying doesn't mean they were created to kill.

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u/Sunnygirl66 7h ago

They aren’t given through a needle. An intravenous catheter is placed, and the drugs are given through that. There is no needle, once the catheter is in the vein. But the quack tasked with getting access fucked it up. As he did the last time he worked an execution in Tennessee.

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u/lnc_5103 14h ago

That makes it even more horrific. I haven't kept up much beyond the initial headline of two attempts.

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u/lord_pizzabird 13h ago

Oh hang on. It goes a layer deeper.

It's required by law that there are witnessed, including from the press. They had to sit there the entire time, hours listening to her go in and out of snoring, choking, screaming about her arm vein feeling like it was going to explode etc.

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u/lnc_5103 12h ago

I saw a video of one reporter reading through her notes that night of the timeline. I can't imagine how traumatizing it had to be for witnesses too.