Tennessee woman’s execution halted just an hour before lethal injection

A federal appeals court halted the execution of Christa Gail Pike on Wednesday, about an hour before she was scheduled to be put to death in Tennessee.

The 6th US Circuit Court of Appeals granted the stay in a 2-1 decision as it considers whether allegations that Pike suffered childhood sexual abuse and rape were adequately considered during her sentencing, the Associated Press reported.

Pike, now 50, was sentenced to death for the 1995 killing of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer. Pike was 18 at the time of the murder.

She would have become the first woman executed in Tennessee in at least 200 years.

Tennessee’s attorney general immediately appealed the decision to the US Supreme Court, seeking permission for the execution to proceed.

Pike does not deny killing Slemmer. Her lawyers argue that her age, mental illness and history of severe abuse should be considered in determining whether she should be executed.

“It is inconceivable that in the 21st century, the criminal justice system is poised to execute a survivor of rape and child sexual abuse whose jury never had the opportunity to consider those facts in weighing the defendant’s moral culpability,” Pike’s lawyers wrote.

Slemmer’s mother, May Martinez, supports the execution and told the Associated Press she has waited decades for Pike’s sentence to be carried out.