Judges issued a temporary stay shortly before Pike was scheduled to die by lethal injection in Tennessee.
A federal appeals court granted a temporary stay of execution on Wednesday for Christa Pike, halting her scheduled lethal injection in Nashville, Tennessee, shortly before it was set to take place.
The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals stepped in while Pike was set to die at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution. The outlets differed on the exact timing: Al Jazeera reported the court intervened less than two hours before the execution, while BBC News reported the ruling came an hour before. If executed, Pike would be the first woman put to death in Tennessee in more than 200 years.
Tennessee officials responded by asking the U.S. Supreme Court to lift the stay and allow the execution to go forward.
Abuse claims and legal challenges
Judges granted the pause to evaluate claims from Pike’s attorneys that courts never properly weighed evidence of childhood trauma during her sentencing. Her legal team documented severe physical abuse, neglect and rapes at ages 11 and 17, alongside diagnoses of bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Pike’s lawyers noted that Tennessee attorneys spent years arguing that Pike had lied about being sexually abused as a child. At a recent hearing, however, the state acknowledged it did not dispute that she experienced rape and sexual abuse. Pike’s defense asked the appeals court to return her motion to the district court, arguing the state’s previous stance had compromised federal reviews.
Earlier in the week, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee rejected Pike’s clemency petition to reduce her sentence to life without parole, and the U.S. Supreme Court turned down a separate request for a reprieve. A panel of United Nations human rights experts had also called on officials to commute her death sentence.
The 1995 killing of Colleen Slemmer
Pike was sentenced to death in 1996 for the murder of Colleen Slemmer, a 19-year-old classmate at a Job Corps vocational center in Knoxville. In January 1995, the 18-year-old Pike, her 17-year-old boyfriend Tadaryl Shipp, and 18-year-old Shadolla Peterson lured Slemmer into a wooded area, where they tortured and killed her.
Pike viewed Slemmer as a romantic rival and accused her of trying to steal her boyfriend. During the attack, a pentagram was carved into Slemmer’s chest. Shipp later admitted to carving the shape, while Pike denied doing so. Pike kept a piece of Slemmer’s skull and showed it to others at the training center.
Both Pike and Shipp confessed to the murder. Shipp received a life sentence with the possibility of parole, while Pike received the death penalty. Slemmer’s mother, May Martinez, has publicly supported Pike’s execution.
Pike’s lawyers have argued that her sentence was an outlier because she was 18 at the time of the crime and had an underdeveloped adolescent brain. Tennessee now awaits a decision from the U.S. Supreme Court on whether the execution can proceed.
