Appeals Court Halts Christa Pike’s Scheduled Execution

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit halted Tennessee’s scheduled execution of Christa Pike on September 30, issuing a temporary stay about an hour before the lethal injection was due to begin. The court is reviewing whether her history of childhood sexual abuse was adequately considered in earlier proceedings. The stay does not overturn her death sentence, and the timing of any future execution is uncertain. Pike, 50, was sentenced to death for the 1995 killing of Colleen Slemmer, a 19-year-old fellow student at a Knoxville job-training program. Pike was 18 at the time. Her execution, if carried out, would have been Tennessee’s first execution of a woman in at least 200 years, according to the reports. Witnesses had gathered at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville before the court intervened. The latest challenge turns in part on how Pike’s filing should be treated under federal procedure. Her lawyers argue that recent acknowledgments by Tennessee officials about her abuse history support reopening earlier federal proceedings. The state has argued that her sentence should stand after prior review.