In a decision issued Wednesday, judges from the Sixth Circuit Appeals Court halted the execution of 50‑year‑old Christa Pike an hour before it was set to take place in Tennessee. Pike has been on death row since her 1996 conviction for the murder of 19‑year‑old Colleen Slemmer.
The stay comes after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to grant Pike a reprieve and the Tennessee governor declined to exercise clemency earlier this week. The appellate court said it needed more time to consider arguments in Pike’s case, leaving the duration of the pause uncertain.
Pike’s legal team has long contested the state’s claim that she lied about being sexually abused as a child. In a recent hearing on the execution method, the state acknowledged that she had suffered sexual abuse and rape, but the lawyers argued that Tennessee’s lethal‑injection protocol could inflict undue suffering, violating constitutional protections. They also contend that an 18‑year‑old brain is not an adult brain, and that Pike was too young to be sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of Slemmer at a job‑training camp for troubled teens.
At the time of her incarceration, Pike was the youngest person on death row in Tennessee, according to the Department of Corrections. The latest ruling is separate from the Supreme Court’s refusal to hear her appeal on the lethal‑injection method.
What follows is unclear; the appellate court has not set a new execution date, and the case remains in limbo as federal courts weigh the state’s claims and Pike’s legal arguments.
