Sixth Circuit halts Christa Pike’s scheduled execution

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit temporarily halted Tennessee’s scheduled execution of Christa Pike on September 30, ordering a short stay shortly before she was due to receive a lethal injection. The court said it needed time to review arguments in her appeal; it did not set an end date or resolve the underlying claims. Pike, 50, was sentenced to death for the 1995 killing of Colleen Slemmer, a 19-year-old classmate in Knoxville. Pike was 18 at the time. Her execution would have been Tennessee’s first execution of a woman in more than 200 years, according to the reports. The stay leaves the execution paused while the legal dispute is considered, with no new execution date established. The appeal centers on whether Pike can challenge earlier federal proceedings in light of Tennessee’s changed acknowledgment of her history of abuse. Her lawyers argue that the state’s earlier refusal to accept those claims undermined the prior review of her case. Tennessee argues that Pike is seeking to relitigate an unsuccessful claim and that the filing is barred as a successive petition under federal law.