Christa Pike’s lawyers plan to argue in court on Wednesday that a Nashville judge should order the state to preserve a trove of evidence connected with her failed execution last week.
In an Oct. 2 filing, Ms. Pike’s lawyers listed records that they wanted preserved and, in the case of syringes and any chemical residue, independently evaluated. They also asked to be allowed to see Ms. Pike, who they said was conscious and speaking in a Nashville hospital as of Tuesday afternoon.
They asked for training and employment records of the execution team, details about medical equipment and information about any “biological or chemical residue.”
In response, lawyers with the office of Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti have said that such an order is unnecessary, arguing in court filings that the Department of Correction was already required to preserve many of the records. Gov. Bill Lee, a Republican, ordered a pause on all executions and the launch of an independent investigation after Ms. Pike survived two doses of pentobarbital.
Tennessee’s lethal injection protocol, established in 2025 after a temporary pause on executions, has long been shrouded in secrecy. The failure to successfully execute Ms. Pike is the second time this year that the Department of Correction has botched capital punishment; the execution of Tony Carruthers, convicted of three 1994 murders, was called off in May after staff members failed to find a vein.
The records in the Pike case were, her lawyers wrote, evidence of “incompetent and reckless actions.”
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