Christa Pike’s execution in Nashville was halted Wednesday morning when a federal appeals court intervened shortly before it was scheduled to proceed, opening another legal fight as Tennessee officials sought to carry out her death sentence.
The U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals granted the stay to consider whether the state’s treatment of Pike’s history of childhood sexual abuse undermined her earlier court proceedings. Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti’s office said it would ask the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse the order.
Pike, 50, was sentenced to death in 1996 for killing Colleen Slemmer. Her execution would be Tennessee’s first execution of a woman in more than two centuries.
The dispute before the appeals court concerns what Pike’s lawyers characterize as a change in the state’s legal position. They argue that Tennessee previously treated her accounts of sexual abuse as fabricated but recently acknowledged that abuse, calling into question a foundation of her state court proceedings.
During an August hearing, a state lawyer said Tennessee did not dispute the suffering Pike had endured. The appeals court determined that a pause was necessary to resolve the issue. Pike’s motion was not a new habeas corpus petition challenging her confinement.
The intervention followed a U.S. Supreme Court denial Tuesday night and earlier actions by the Tennessee Supreme Court and Gov. Bill Lee that had left the execution on track.
“We will continue to advocate for the lawfully imposed sentence as the courts work through this technical issue,” Skrmetti’s office said in a statement.
Pike’s childhood trauma also figured in a separate challenge over whether her medical and psychological conditions would make her execution unconstitutionally cruel. After a three-day hearing in August, Special Master Judge Mark Ward declined to block it. Pike’s attorneys presented evidence of sexual abuse, bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Slemmer was killed in 1995, when Pike was 18. The two were Job Corps classmates. Slemmer’s mother, May Martinez, remembered her daughter as a computer enthusiast who volunteered with the Special Olympics and helped students with disabilities. Martinez and her husband drove roughly 600 miles to Nashville to witness the execution.
Outside, more than 60 opponents of capital punishment and at least 15 supporters gathered in separate fenced areas Wednesday morning.
Among those opposing the execution was Amanda Buck, who traveled from the Tri-Cities and arrived at 3 a.m. Buck knew Pike while serving time in prison and described her as someone who eventually developed remorse. In her clemency petition, Pike wrote that understanding the harm she had caused took years and acknowledged taking away someone’s child, sister and friend.