Pike was receiving “lifesaving care” at a Nashville hospital on Thursday, having survived two shots of the lethal drug pentobarbital, her attorneys said in a press conference. It is the first time in the modern era of the U.S. death penalty that a person received lethal injection drugs and survived, according to the nonpartisan Death Penalty Information Center.
Pike’s case has drawn scrutiny over the state’s decision to proceed with her execution, despite repeated warnings about its lethal injection protocol from her attorneys, who said she was subjected to “chemical torture.”
“There is no one that wanted what happened last night to happen,” Lee told reporters on Thursday, describing the botched execution as a “tragedy.” But he stopped short of suggesting that he might heed renewed calls to commute Pike’s sentence to life in prison.
Lee had denied Pike’s clemency request to commute her sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole on Monday.
The Tennessee Department of Correction said in a statement to media outlets late Wednesday that it “had followed every step of the state’s lawful, established execution protocol approved by the attorney general’s office.” It described the lethal injection as “consistently effective.”
TIME has reached out to the state’s Department of Correction and Pike’s attorneys for comment.
Randy Spivey, an attorney with the Tennessee Office of the Post-Conviction Defender, said Pike endured a “torturous” experience in the execution chamber. Pike’s left arm was pierced by at least seven needles, and her right arm turned purple, he said. She said her arm felt like it was “about to explode,” her attorneys said.
Pike remained cooperative throughout the multiple execution attempts and tried to help her executioners, her attorneys said. “She over and over again said, ‘Please try up on my shoulder higher. Please try here. Please try here,’” Spivey said.
“And that’s what happened,” Ferrell said. “Minus the death.”
Tennessee switched to a one-drug lethal injection of the barbiturate pentobarbital as its execution protocol in December 2024. Pike’s lawyers previously raised concerns about the source of the drugs, while Reuters reported on Thursday that that information had been withheld. E.U. law bars pharmaceutical companies from selling drugs for use in executions, leading some U.S. prison systems to procure the drugs from compounding pharmacies in processes often shielded by state secrecy laws.
Pike’s lawyers said in a statement that their concerns proved true: “difficult vein access, blown veins, degraded pentobarbital, no emergency medical care available when things inevitably go wrong, all under a protocol that remains veiled in secrecy.”
The American Medical Association and American Nurses Association prohibit doctors and nurses from participating in executions under their professional ethics standards. Some states have used execution personnel without current medical licenses. Tennessee, however, requires the participation of physicians, or other medically trained personnel in an execution.
Lee also paused executions and ordered an independent review in 2022 after it was discovered that prison officials failed to properly test lethal injection drugs for endotoxins in the lead-up to the planned execution of Oscar Franklin Smith. Smith was ultimately killed in May 2025, three years after Lee issued a temporary reprieve.
Some call for commutation, others the electric chair
Pike’s attorneys have publicly called on the state’s governor to reconsider commuting Pike’s sentence to life in prison. Pike, who was sentenced in March 1996 at age 20, has expressed remorse for the torture and murder of her classmate. Her legal team had asked courts to review mitigating claims of sexual abuse and rape as a child, which they said Tennessee had disputed in earlier proceedings. They also separately argued that aspects of the execution process could trigger PTSD related to that abuse, constituting cruel and unusual punishment.
In her dissent alongside liberal justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote, “I see no reason to short-circuit the ordinary process of appellate review, particularly in light of the grave consequences of an erroneous decision. Tennessee’s desire to expedite Pike’s execution by a few days or even weeks cannot outweigh her ‘fundamental interest in [her] own life.’”
Pike’s case has also renewed calls to abolish the death penalty.
Campbell described the incident as a “moral catastrophe” that cost the state $500,000.
Abraham Bonowitz speaks during a March 4 Mercy protest against the death penalty at the Tennessee State Capitol in Nashville, Tenn., on Sept. 27, 2026. —George Walker IV—APU.N. human rights chief Volker Turk said on Thursday that “the case of Christa Pike lays bare multiple reasons why the death penalty should be abolished.” Calling for the state to stop any further attempt to execute Pike, he said, “the prolonged suffering—physical and mental—arising from multiple failed execution attempts is abhorrent and cruel.”
Others have instead said the failed execution demonstrates the need for a different, more effective execution protocol.
Cameron Sexton, Republican speaker of Tennessee’s House, said the General Assembly would investigate ways to ensure future executions do not fail, including expanding alternative methods and changing current medications to include potassium chloride.
Slemmer’s mother, May Martinez, who had driven from Florida to Nashville to witness the execution, said Thursday that the execution process was an injustice to her family. “Here we are, 31 years, and you’re laughing in my face again,” she told First Coast News, expressing frustration that she and her husband were kept in the prison for hours and were not allowed to leave without an escort. The victim’s family had long supported Pike’s execution.
May Martinez, mother of murder victim Colleen Slemmer, walks out of Riverbend Maximum Security Institution during a stay of the planned execution of Christa Pike in Nashville, Tenn., on Sept. 30, 2026. —George Walker IV—AP‘Cruel’ punishment
While Pike appears to be the first person in the U.S. to survive lethal injection drugs, she is not the only person to have experienced botched execution attempts, nor the first whose attorneys have argued that multiple attempts could violate the Constitution.
The Supreme Court, however, ruled in a 5-4 decision that a state can attempt a second execution, finding that an unintentional equipment malfunction did not violate the Constitution.
Still, Pike’s lawyers are urging the governor to spare her another execution attempt after what they said caused “unnecessary agony.”
“The state of Tennessee has shown us again that they are not capable of carrying out an execution consistent with basic human dignity,” Spivey said. “Last night was not just inefficient. It was cruel, and it was torturous.”
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