According to Dr. Zivot, what happens next depends on Pike’s recovery. Her attorneys say the state has made “no promises” that it won’t try executing her again.
“If Christa Pike returns to her normal neurologic self – that is to know who she is, where she is and what she’s done – then she certainly faces the prospect of another attempt at executing her,” he said. If she has a permanent cognitive decline, however, it could work in her favor.
The botched execution did not come as a surprise to many. Pike’s lawyers had warned about this exact outcome before the execution. The Tennessee Supreme Court rejected the argument that the state’s protocol had no plan for medical care if she did. It said the state was “under no obligation to attempt revival” and called her fears “too speculative.” The judges also noted that pentobarbital had been used in more than 100 executions “without incident.”
On Wednesday, her lawyers won a court fight to preserve evidence from the attempt, including the drugs, the IV lines and surveillance footage. It could lay the groundwork for legal action against Tennessee.
Pike is the first person known to have survived a lethal injection of pentobarbital, but others, including Tony Carruthers in Tennessee, have survived executions when executioners failed to get IV access.
