FRANKFORT, Ky. — Just days after the Kentucky Supreme Court rejected an effort by Attorney General Russell Coleman to move the Commonwealth closer to resuming executions, a failed execution in neighboring Tennessee has placed Kentucky’s death penalty debate back in the spotlight.
Christa Pike, 50, survived Tennessee’s attempt to execute her by lethal injection Wednesday, Sept. 30. Pike, who was sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in Knoxville, received two doses of pentobarbital but remained alive. She was eventually removed from the execution chamber and transported to a hospital for emergency treatment. AP News
The extraordinary incident occurred less than a week after Kentucky’s highest court issued a ruling involving the state’s own long-stalled execution process.
The story doesn’t end with what happened in Tennessee.
Just six days before Christa Pike’s failed execution, the Kentucky Supreme Court issued a major ruling involving the Commonwealth’s own death penalty — and an Eastern Kentucky murder case sits at the center of that fight.
Paid subscribers can continue reading for the full story, including why Kentucky hasn’t carried out an execution in nearly 18 years, what the Supreme Court just decided, and how Pike’s failed execution has reignited the debate here at home.
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