US urged to halt death penalty after Christa Pike’s failed lethal injection

Calls for a nationwide halt to the US death penalty are growing after Tennessee’s failed execution of Christa Pike left her alive and in critical condition.

Pike, 50, was given two syringes containing a total of 5g of pentobarbital on Wednesday, but remained alive more than an hour after the execution began.

Tennessee Governor Bill Lee later suspended executions in the state and ordered an independent review.

Lawyers, medical experts and faith leaders are now calling for wider action following a series of troubled executions across the US.

Sandra Babcock, a Cornell Law School death penalty scholar who advises Pike’s legal team, described the execution as “unimaginably barbaric.

They demand accountability,” according to The Guardian.

Pike’s lawyer Randy Spivey, who witnessed the execution attempt, called it “cruel and torturous”.

He said he counted seven needles inserted into Pike’s left arm, including “one of which appeared to be bent when it was pulled from her”.

Bryan Stevenson, founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, said repeated problems should have already prompted action.

“Nearly a dozen botched executions in recent years should have suspended executions long before now,” Stevenson told The Guardian.

Pike was sentenced to death for the 1995 killing of her teenage classmate, Colleen Slemmer.

She had been scheduled to become the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years.