Tennessee prison chief resigns after botched execution of Christa Pike

The head of prisons in the US state of Tennessee has resigned following a failed execution attempt on death row inmate Christa Pike, the BBC, Sky News, and Yahoo reported. Governor Bill Lee announced the resignation on Saturday in a joint statement with Tennessee Department of Correction Commissioner Frank Strada, according to the BBC. Strada stated that stepping down was in the best interests of the state and called an ongoing investigation into the incident appropriate and necessary, the BBC reported. [1][2][7]

Pike survived two doses of pentobarbital during the execution attempt on Wednesday and is in critical condition, according to the BBC and The Journal. Her attorneys said that she is unconscious and on a ventilator at a hospital in Nashville, AP News reported. Her lawyers are now seeking to commute her death sentence, the BBC reported. [1][3][6]

In 1996, a jury convicted Pike for the 1995 murder of 19-year-old classmate Colleen Slemmer in Knoxville. Pike was 20 years old when she was sentenced to death, making her one of the youngest women to receive a death sentence in the United States following the Supreme Court's 1976 reinstatement of capital punishment. If executed, she would be the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years. [1][9][10]

Lethal injection was introduced in the United States as an alternative to execution methods such as the electric chair, gas chamber, and firing squad, according to The Journal. State officials are now conducting an investigation into the failed execution, the BBC reported. [1][3]