Christa Pike describes anguish in first statement since execution attempt

Christa Pike, the death row inmate who survived an execution attempt by the State of Tennessee in September, describes that night and its aftermath in a lengthy statement released Friday by her attorneys. Her botched execution drew international embarrassment to Gov. Bill Lee and the Tennessee Department of Correction, whose Commissioner Frank Strada resigned earlier this month.

After surviving Tennessee’s execution attempt, Pike, who has not yet received a second execution date, also enters unprecedented legal territory as attorneys contemplate appealing to her Eighth Amendment protection against cruel and unusual punishment. Pike expected to die on Sept. 30, but was rushed to an undisclosed hospital after TDOC administered lethal doses of injection drugs that did not kill her.