Tennessee is preparing to execute Christa Pike, a 50-year-old death-row inmate whose scheduled execution would mark the state's first execution of a woman in more than two centuries.
Pike is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on Wednesday, September 30, after Tennessee Governor Bill Lee rejected her request for clemency on Monday.
Pike was sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, a fellow student at the Knoxville Job Corps. Pike was 18 at the time of the killing and was convicted alongside her boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, who was 17 when the crime occurred.
Her defence team has continued to challenge the execution, asking the US Supreme Court to intervene and halt the scheduled procedure.
Lawyers have raised several arguments, including concerns about the execution method and Pike's history of severe childhood abuse and trauma. They have also pointed to her age at the time of the crime and argued that circumstances surrounding her case warrant a sentence other than death.
Governor Lee, however, said he would not intervene after reviewing Pike's clemency request.
“After deliberate consideration of Christa Gail Pike’s request for clemency, and after a thorough review of the case, I am upholding the sentence of the State of Tennessee and do not plan to intervene,” Lee said.
If the execution proceeds, Pike would become the first woman executed by Tennessee since 1820. The case has attracted renewed attention because of her age at the time of the crime and the lengthy legal process surrounding her death sentence.
Pike's attorneys are now seeking a last-minute stay from the Supreme Court. Unless the court or another authority intervenes, the execution is scheduled to take place at Tennessee's Riverbend Maximum Security Institution on September 30.
