Christa Pike was hours away from becoming the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years when a federal appeals court stepped in Wednesday morning and stopped it. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit issued an order staying her execution “until further order of this court,” pausing a case that had already exhausted nearly every other avenue of appeal.
A Late Reprieve After Exhausted Appeals
The stay, issued in a 2-1 decision, came after Pike's attorneys raised new arguments about her traumatic childhood, which they say was marked by years of sexual assault, according to USA Today. Her legal team also argued that Tennessee's execution protocols could make her death torturous given her physical, medical and psychological conditions, including PTSD, according to WKRN. The Nashville Banner reported that the appeals had been mostly exhausted before the panel's last-minute intervention.
The stay landed just hours before Pike's execution had been set to proceed, and it followed a rapid succession of denials. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up her case less than 24 hours before the scheduled execution, per the same USA Today account. Gov. Bill Lee had denied her clemency request on Monday, and the Tennessee Supreme Court had already turned down her request for a stay days earlier.
The 1995 Murder That Sent Her to Death Row
Pike was convicted of the prolonged and brutal 1995 murder of her romantic rival, 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, the outlet reports. She was sentenced to death, while her then-17-year-old boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, received a life sentence because he was not eligible for the death penalty at that age.
Had it gone forward, Pike's execution would have made her the first woman put to death in Tennessee in more than 200 years. She remains the only woman on the state's death row, according to WKRN's reporting.
Conflicting Records on the Scheduled Time
Court and news accounts differ on exactly when Wednesday's execution had been scheduled to take place. USA Today reported the execution had been set for 10 a.m. Eastern, while a filing before the U.S. Supreme Court listed the time as 10 a.m. Central. Neither account has been reconciled, and it remains unclear how long the Sixth Circuit's stay will remain in place or what happens next in the case.
