Tennessee governor refuses clemency for Christa Pike before execution

• Governor Bill Lee said on Monday he would uphold Christa Pike’s death sentence and not intervene.¹
• Tennessee has scheduled Pike’s execution for 10am on Wednesday, 30 September, at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville.²³
• Pike was 18 when she and her boyfriend were convicted over the 1995 killing of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, a fellow Knoxville Job Corps student.⁴
• The Tennessee Supreme Court rejected Pike’s state-court stay request on 23 September; she applied to the US Supreme Court for a stay two days later.⁵⁶
• If carried out, the execution would be Tennessee’s first of a woman since 1820.⁴

Lee said he had considered Pike’s clemency request and reviewed the case before deciding not to commute her sentence. Her lawyers had asked him to change the punishment to life in prison without parole.¹⁷

The governor’s decision is separate from Pike’s court challenge. Her application to the US Supreme Court argues that Tennessee’s lethal-injection protocol and the state’s rules for challenging it raise constitutional questions. Those are claims made by Pike’s lawyers, not findings by the court.³

The Supreme Court docket lists the stay application, filed on 25 September, and an amicus brief filed the following day. As of 28 September, it lists no ruling on the application. Tennessee’s Department of Correction still lists 30 September at Riverbend as the scheduled execution.⁶²

The case concerns the killing of Slemmer in 1995. Pike’s lawyers have argued that her age, mental illness and history of abuse should weigh against execution. Slemmer’s mother, May Martinez, told the Associated Press she wanted the sentence carried out after waiting decades.⁴

On 24 September, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights published a report finding US responsibility for rights violations concerning Pike’s death sentence, legal representation and confinement. The commission recommended reviewing and commuting the sentence; its report is not a US court ruling.⁸

Footnotes

1. WVLT, “Gov. Lee not intervening in Christa Pike’s execution” ↩ ↩²

2. Tennessee Department of Correction, “Execution Advisory: Media Guidelines — Christa Pike” ↩ ↩²

3. Pike’s application for a stay of execution, filed with the US Supreme Court ↩ ↩²

4. Associated Press, published by The Guardian, “Tennessee to execute a woman for first time in 200 years after governor denies clemency” ↩ ↩² ↩³

5. Tennessee appellate case record, State of Tennessee v. Christa Gail Pike ↩

6. US Supreme Court docket, Christa Gail Pike v. Tennessee, No. 26A414 ↩ ↩²

7. Death Penalty Information Center, report on Pike’s clemency request ↩

8. Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, report on Christa Pike ↩