Perspective: In the troubling case of Christa Pike, what could — or should — happen next?

See More Deseret News Stories In SearchView CommentsShareLuke Ihnen, attorney for Christa Pike, speaks during a news conference after a judge ruled the Tennessee Department of Corrections must preserve all evidence related to the failed execution of Pike, Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2026, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV) AP Photo/George Walker IV By Jennifer GrahamJennifer is the Ideas and Culture editor and author of the Right to the Point newsletter. She has more than 30 years of experience as a journalist and writes from Boston.Your browser does not support the audio element.Play audioNEW: Try Article AudioNEW: Try Article AudioAudio quality:|Skip back 15 secondsPlay audioSkip forward 15 seconds00:0000:00Decrease playback rate1.0xIncrease playback rate00:00/00:00Skip back 15 secondsPlay audioSkip forward 15 seconds-0.5×0.6×0.7×0.8×0.9×1.0x1.1×1.2×1.3×1.4×1.5×1.6×1.7×1.8×1.9×2.0x2.1×2.2×2.3×2.4×2.5×2.6×2.7×2.8×2.9×3.0x+The case of Christa Pike, who survived an execution attempt in Tennessee, has been called unprecedented. It’s not.

Among other failed executions, there is the case of Willie Francis in Louisiana.

In 1946, the state attempted to execute a 17-year-old who had been condemned to die for shooting a pharmacist to death. Jurisprudence was much different then. The trial of the teen concluded within two days, there were no appeals, and Willie Francis was sent to the electric chair.

News accounts described Francis convulsing and screaming as the executioner tried twice to carry out the sentence. At one point, the teen screamed, “I am not dying,” and the execution was called off.

After the attempt, there were calls for the sentence to be commuted; the case eventually went before the U.S. Supreme Court, which allowed the execution to take place a year after the first attempt.

Will the state of Tennessee also get a second chance to execute Pike? That’s among the many questions swirling as a strange week comes to a close.

When the week began, Pike’s attorneys had been told that she was brain dead and unlikely to recover. But she regained consciousness on Tuesday, and reportedly asked for an iPad soon after waking up. By Wednesday afternoon, she had taken a few steps. And, according to a statement released by her attorneys, on Thursday, she was walking with assistance and her arms, which she had initially not been able to move, “are healing and regaining movement and strength” and she has started to eat again.

“Physicians are encouraged by her physical recovery,” the statement said.

There are many people, however, who are dismayed by it, including the family of the young woman that Pike and her accomplices killed, Colleen Slemmer, who was 19 at the time of her death.

Slemmer’s mother, May Martinez, told ABC News that she cried when she realized that Pike had survived and that she felt she had failed her daughter by not seeing justice delivered. She later told an NBC affiliate that she doesn’t think the execution will take place. “It doesn’t matter what I think. They’re going to do what they’re going to do,” WBIR reported.

On the date of her scheduled execution, Sept. 30, Pike was given two doses of the barbiturate pentobarbital. The same drug was administered to a convicted killer in Texas a week later, and he died within 20 minutes.

In Tennessee, it was the second failed execution this year. Gov. Bill Lee has paused other planned executions and has ordered an investigation, and the state’s prison chief, Frank Strada, has resigned.

What happens next for Pike will depend on the courts and the governor.

At a hearing on Wednesday in Nashville, Pike’s attorneys asked a judge to require the Tennessee Department of Correction to keep “logbooks, surveillance footage, equipment, medical records and other information related to the events that transpired before and after the failed execution,” per The Washington Post.

They have not yet asked for access to the records, but are simply asking for their preservation.

Pike’s legal team also asked the judge to order the removal of shackles on Pike in her hospital bed and to allow for communication with her through a tablet. The judge did not immediately rule on the requests.

Pike’s attorneys have also asked the Tennessee governor to grant clemency in light of the failed execution. “She should never be subjected to another execution attempt,” they said in a statement.

Lee has not responded to the request. Shortly before the attempted execution, he denied a request for clemency that her legal team submitted, citing childhood trauma, and her rehabilitation and remorse.

NewsNation’s Brian Entin, who went to Nashville for the hearing, talked with criminal defense attorney Mark Geragos, who is not associated with the Pike case, about the possibility that Pike might file a civil suit against the state of Tennessee in order to receive compensation for her injuries and any psychological harm she sustained.

“I think the last of her concerns right now is to sue. If she was going to sue, it would be to stop them from another failed attempt at killing her,” Geragos said. But, he added, “Look, would I be surprised, in this case? That would be one of the least surprising turns of events.”

Geragos noted that Pike had originally been offered life without parole in exchange for a guilty plea, but turned it down and went to trial. And as the date approached for her execution, Pike’s legal team argued that death by lethal injection would be difficult to achieve because of complexities with her veins.

It’s been reported that she was stuck with seven needles and that at least one had been bent. During the procedure, she said, “The vein in my arm feels like it’s about to burst open,” which analysts have said was evidence that something was wrong.

“To then take somebody from the death chamber to the hospital to try to do heroic efforts to get them fit enough to kill them again, it just seems to be the definition of insanity,” Geragos told Entin.

Pike’s legal team seems to be laying the groundwork for a case that their client has suffered psychological harm.

In the statement released Thursday, they said, ”While her physical recovery has been remarkable, significant questions remain about the long-term effects of what she endured. Christa is dealing with the profound psychological trauma of having survived a failed execution, including the terror, pain and uncertainty of believing she was about to die.”

In an interview with Jesse Weber of NewsNation, Bernard Harcourt, a professor of law and civil liberties at Columbia University, said he doubts that Tennessee will be able to try again.

“It’s arguable that at this point, anything more would be a violation of the Eighth Amendment because there’s already been just this traumatic experience that she’s gone through,” Harcourt said.

In a similar case, Harcourt represented Doyle Hamm, a death row inmate in Alabama, whose scheduled execution in 2018 was called off after he was still alive nearly three hours into the procedure. He later filed a civil rights lawsuit and reached an agreement with the state in which Alabama said it would not seek another execution date.