President Donald Trump has weighed in on the botched execution of Christa Pike earlier this week, giving a damning five-word assessment.
Pike, 50, survived two doses of pentobarbital (lethal injection) on Wednesday at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville, Tennessee, thirty years after being convicted of the brutal murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer.
Had her sentence been carried out as planned, Pike would have become the first woman executed by the State of Tennessee in over 200 years.
As readers will surely be aware, things did not go as planned.
Pike was strapped to a gurney and given two doses of pentobarbital. However, neither attempt resulted in her death.
A witness described what happened inside the execution chamber. At around 7:34PM, Pike reportedly said: “My arm feels like it is about to burst open.”
She then asked: “Does this happen like that?”
Witnesses said Pike was kicking her feet as she was restrained and the lethal injection drugs were administered.
Following the failed execution, Pike was taken to an outside medical facility. A doctor who has been involved with her legal team has explained what the ordeal could mean for her long-term health, suggesting that the 50-year-old could be “very likely brain damaged”.
What happens in the coming weeks and months should Pike survive remains to be seen, but Tennessee’s inability to carry out the sentence has been met with widespread criticism.
Indeed, President Donald Trump was questioned this week about whether or not he would push for changes to capital punishment, describing Pike’s case as an “interesting situation”.
As for the botched execution itself, Trump said “It shouldn’t be very difficult,” to execute someone.
Tennessee Governor Bill Lee, who refused to grant Pike clemency in the days leading up to her scheduled execution, labeled the situation a tragedy as he announced a pause on executions for the rest of the year.
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