Christa Pike was unconscious, intubated and on a ventilator in a Nashville hospital a day after surviving a botched execution attempt, her lawyers said in a court filing, raising questions about whether the state could legally try to execute her again.
As of Thursday evening, Ms. Pike, 50, was critically ill, they wrote in the Friday filing in Davidson County Chancery Court, and both of her arms were swollen, burned and blistered when she arrived at the hospital.
Her condition sets the stage for an unprecedented ethical and legal quagmire: A future attempt to execute Ms. Pike could hinge on whether she is determined to be capable of what the Supreme Court has described as a “rational understanding” of the reason she is to be put to death.
And although Gov. Bill Lee has paused executions for now, the front-runner to be elected governor next month, Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn, said that she would try again to execute Ms. Pike, who was convicted of the 1995 murder of a classmate.
The family of the classmate, Colleen Slemmer, deserves “swift justice,” Ms. Blackburn said in a statement, in response to questions from The New York Times.
Friday’s disclosure about Ms. Pike’s condition is the most detailed update since she survived two rounds of pentobarbital, the drug used as part of Tennessee’s lethal injection protocol, on Wednesday evening. But it also underscored the legal and medical complexities that lie ahead for Ms. Pike, her lawyers, the doctors and nurses treating her, and her loved ones.
“Hospital staff are working to save Ms. Pike’s life and to clear the pentobarbital from her system,” the lawyers wrote in an emergency court filing. In a separate statement, they said she was also receiving treatment for “significant injuries to both arms.”
In a statement, Luke Ihnen, who represents Ms. Pike through the Federal Defender Services of Eastern Tennessee, said that “we are working closely with those closest to Christa to respect her wishes, safeguard her privacy and protect her rights as a patient during this extraordinarily difficult time.”
The lawyers’ emergency filing asked a Nashville judge to order the preservation of state prison records related to Ms. Pike’s attempted execution. The records were, they wrote, evidence of “incompetent and reckless actions.”
Among the records they sought were training and employment records of the execution team, details about medical equipment and information about any “biological or chemical residue.”
The Tennessee Department of Correction declined to comment, citing the litigation. A spokeswoman for the Tennessee attorney general, Jonathan Skrmetti, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Ms. Pike’s lawyers have asked the governor to allow Ms. Pike to serve the rest of her life in prison. Mr. Lee, a Republican, has ordered an investigation into what went wrong Wednesday.
What comes next for Ms. Pike and her legal case is unclear.
Ms. Pike’s lawyers said they had not been allowed direct access to Ms. Pike, and asked the Nashville judge to allow a visit. And Ms. Pike had been deeply involved in legal arguments and communications on her own behalf.
“This is an intelligent woman who knew what she wanted as far as litigation and knew what she didn’t want,” said Stephen Ferrell, with the Federal Defender Services of Eastern Tennessee. “In the hopes that she does make a recovery sufficient enough to participate in this, I would like to get her input.”
Legal and ethics experts said Ms. Pike’s treatment could qualify as cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment. But it was also possible that her medical condition would prevent execution altogether.
John H. Blume, a law professor and director of the Cornell Death Penalty Project, said based on the Supreme Court’s prior logic, “if somebody has a significant brain injury that significantly affects their cognitive capacity, I would think that same rule would apply here.”
Austin Sarat, a law professor at Amherst College, called Ms. Pike’s case “barely charted waters.”
Two decades ago, the U.S. Supreme Court barred the execution of people with mental disabilities as a violation of the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment. The court has also barred the execution of people who lack a “rational understanding” of the reason they are to be put to death.
“If you don’t understand you’re about to die, and do not understand you’re about to die because the state believes you have committed murder, then you may not be executed,” said Christopher Slobogin, the director of the Criminal Justice Program at Vanderbilt University.
Ms. Pike’s medical condition also presents a difficult scenario for the medical staff working to save her life: If she recovers, Tennessee might try to kill her again.
“Professionals in health care are faced with difficult moral situations all the time — this is a particularly challenging one,” said Dr. Jeffrey Kahn, the director of the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics. “I also think that they know that their job is to do the best they can for the patient in front of them and not to think about that.”
Jamie McGee, Christina Morales and Ann E. Marimow contributed reporting.
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