Woman sentenced to death was given two doses of pentobarbital as part of execution, but survived, lawyers say.
Tennessee Governor Bill Lee has decided that no more executions will be carried out in Tennessee for the rest of the year.
According to the Associated Press (AP) news agency, he stated this in a statement after the authorities in Tennessee had to interrupt the execution of Christa Pike on Wednesday.
– The implementation of a legal sentence is among the state’s most serious tasks, and the people of Tennessee expect it to be done in a way that is not only legal and constitutional, but also effective, he says.
Lee has also ordered an impartial and comprehensive investigation into the episode, he says.
Tennessee had only one other execution scheduled for the rest of the year.
Christa Pike was the first woman to face execution in the US state in more than 200 years.
Pike’s execution attempt had already been delayed by several hours after an appeals court on Wednesday ordered a stay.
Later, the United States Supreme Court overturned the ruling, and the execution could be carried out in a high-security prison in the city of Nashville on Wednesday evening local time.
But something went wrong during the execution, and 50-year-old Pike was alive and snoring after receiving two doses of the drug pentobarbital. According to legal documents, her lawyers stated this late Wednesday local time.
She was subsequently picked up by ambulance and is receiving treatment at the hospital, the lawyers state.
The maximum security prison in Nashville also confirms that Pike survived the execution attempt.
Journalists who witnessed the incident heard Pike’s loud snoring behind a curtain, several American media outlets write.
According to the AP, Pike’s lawyers filed an urgent petition to the United States Supreme Court late Wednesday evening local time, demanding that the execution be immediately halted and postponed.
The lawyers believe that she has been subjected to unnecessary suffering and that her right not to be subjected to “cruel and unusual punishment” in connection with the execution has been violated.
They have not been informed about her condition, they state according to AP.
The state’s execution protocol stipulates that an additional set of syringes containing poison must be administered “if the inmate is not deceased” after the first set.
However, it does not take into account what should happen if the convict is still alive after the second set.
Christa Pike was sentenced to death in 1996 for the murder of a classmate.
This is not the first time this year that an execution has not gone according to plan in Tennessee.
In May, state prison officials abandoned an execution after searching for more than an hour in vain for a vein for the fatal injection of death row inmate Tony Carruthers.
RITZAU
