Christa Pike faces renewed calls for her execution after Marsha Blackburn won Tennessee’s governor election.
The Daily Star reports that governor-elect Blackburn wants Tennessee to resume executions using the electric chair.
Pike, 50, survived a failed lethal injection on September 30.
Marsha Blackburn calls for Christa Pike’s execution
In comments carried by the paper, Blackburn said: “This situation is tragic. Christa Pike should have been executed long ago.”
The paper also reports that outgoing governor Bill Lee has refused to commute Pike’s sentence to life imprisonment.
Pike’s aunt Carrie Ross previously told the Daily Mail she opposed another execution attempt. She said life without the possibility of parole would be a fair outcome.
Why Christa Pike is on death row
Pike was sentenced to death in 1996 for the January 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer.
She was 18 at the time of the killing and is Tennessee’s only female death row prisoner.
What happened during Christa Pike’s failed execution
Before the September 30 attempt, federal courts issued conflicting decisions about whether it could proceed.
The Sixth Circuit granted a stay, but the US Supreme Court overturned it later that day. Pike remained alive after two rounds of pentobarbital and was taken to hospital.
She woke on October 6 and returned to prison following her hospital discharge on October 10.
Governor Lee ordered a third-party review and postponed the state’s remaining 2026 execution. The Tennessee Department of Correction said it had followed its protocol.
On October 7, Chancellor I’Ashea Myles ordered officials to preserve evidence from the execution attempt.
In an October 22 court filing, her lawyer Randy Spivey said the IV team had used about 10 needles.
Christa Pike’s lawyers challenge prison isolation
Pike’s legal team has also challenged the conditions she faced after returning from hospital.
An emergency federal motion filed on October 30 alleged she was being isolated in the prison infirmary. Her lawyers argued that this breached a 2024 settlement governing her contact with other prisoners. That agreement had ended 28 years in solitary confinement.
It allowed her to work, eat meals and exercise alongside other women at the Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center.
Read more: Christa Pike’s ‘rare form of cancer’ revealed as her lawyers warned about risks of execution
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