Christa Pike -where does she stand legally?

[mids2019]

Just this really. Christ a is obviously being giving life saving treatment at hospital but where does she now stand legally. I suppose she probably has irreversible brain damage so will this not allow a second execution to take place? Is this a cruel and unusual punishment?

[Note from MNHQ - edited your title, OP]

No one knows. It’s America. This will run and run. 🤷‍♀️

Completely agree.

IMO Pike should be life in prison - just like her co-murderer.

I thought he (her co-accused) was eligible for parole at some point? Because he was only 17 at the time of the murder, whereas Christa Pike was 18. It seems they have received very unequal treatment.

I am not trying to minimise what she did to her victim in any way, it was horrific. There is obviously something very wrong with her to be able to do that to another human being. I don't know whether it would ever be safe to release her.

But why is she like that? I read she was born with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. Was first raped at the age of two. Was neglected, raped multiple times while still a child, viciously beaten. Nobody helped her. She tried to tell her teacher what had happened to her, nothing was done. She has brain damage from the abuse she suffered. She should never have had the death penalty in the first place. She was given an inexperienced newly qualified lawyer who advised her wrongly.

She should have been protected by the state of Tennessee as a child, but they let her down completely. Wouldn't you be deeply ashamed to come from Tennessee? She's in prison for 30 years, more than most 'life sentences' in the UK. And now the state of Tennessee have botched her execution, probably maimed her (I heard she can't use her arms). They are basically torturing her now. Foul people. What is wrong with the USA?

Sad to see a lot of presumably UK posters who seem fine with it, even though we've not had the death penalty here for 60 years.

It is also frustrating because let’s face it there are people, mostly men, who have committed equally heinous crimes involving the murder and/or rape of women and children and they’ve gotten 20-50 years in jails. Another reason why I’m against the DP, it only seems to be applied towards a select few and those select few are likely to be one or more of the below: poor, black, very uneducated and possibly suffering intellectual delay , immigrants.

It is also frustrating because let’s face it there are people, mostly men, who have committed equally heinous crimes involving the murder and/or rape of women and children and they’ve gotten 20-50 years in jails.

I bet you can't find a man who has committed a similar crime against a girl/woman in Tennesee who got anything other than a whole life term unless they took a plea deal which was offered to Pike and she turned it down. You certainly won't find one who got 20 years.

Ah interesting. She turned down a plea deal?

Ok so I just googled to see she turned down a plea deal in 1996. That wasn’t very wise of her and I wonder if she had bad counsel but tbf she was 18 and might have felt as if accepting LWOP was too bleak. Regardless I still disagree with the death penalty.

Read more; yes she had bad legal advice

Fine but that's isn't what we were talking about.

You said:
It is also frustrating because let’s face it there are people, mostly men, who have committed equally heinous crimes involving the murder and/or rape of women and children and they’ve gotten 20-50 years in jails.

and I said:
I bet you can't find a man who has committed a similar crime against a girl/woman in Tennesee who got anything other than a whole life term unless they took a plea deal which was offered to Pike and she turned it down. You certainly won't find one who got 20 years.

Yes i definitely will read up on it . Such a sad and interesting case.

ahahahahaha

America, the land of the free and beacon of civilization

Firing squad to be livestreamed, says Pete Hegseth

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cmy0r96xygx6o

Ancient Rome lives again !

Can't see any difference between the US and Iran now, tbh.

Well you pointed out she rejected a plea deal so yes we were talking about that clearly. Plus it’s a discussion forum and this is how discussions go.

And also that was a separate post I made.

In my post that was a direct reply to you I didn’t comment on the Tennessee sentencing patterns because I was talking about how in general men get away with doing these crimes for less.

I am not an expert in the sentencing patterns of every US state and haven’t researched that yet to see if any male murderer/rapist has got less than LWOP. ETA: And I said 20-50 years so even if they don’t get 20, there are likely some who get the upper number I quoted.

Was it bad legal advice? Seems like a good bet to me. She was essentially dressed as an innocent child in the trial. It was a safe bet the Jury wouldn't recommend the death penalty for a young girl so she had nothing to lose by taking a punt.

I don't think that was bad advice, at all, seems like a good bet to me.

Unfortunately for her the Jury surprised everyone and recommended the death penalty.

II am not an expert in the sentencing patterns of every US state and haven’t researched that yet to see if any male murderer/rapist has got less than LWOP. ETA: And I said 20-50 years so even if they don’t get 20, there are likely some who get the upper number I quoted. am not an expert in the sentencing patterns of every US state and haven’t researched that yet to see if any male murderer/rapist has got less than LWOP. ETA: And I said 20-50 years so even if they don’t get 20, there are likely some who get the upper number I quoted.

So you can't find any, nor can I. Most likely becoase there aren't any. They all get life without parole which is exactly what Pike was offered and rejected.

If her lawyer told her that she would "never" get the DP, which is what she claims, it was bad advice. The US doesn't have a good track record of caring about youth when it comes to executions.

George Stinney was only 13 when he was wrongly executed, and that was recent enough that his sisters were still alive to see him exonerated recently.

Brock Turner didn't get any time for rape because he was a good swimmer and "it would be a shame" to ruin his athletic career over a "few minutes of fun".

George Zimmerman didn't get any time for the murder of Trayvon Martin.

Of course they can't. How better to indulge your own sadism whilst still pretending to be a good person, than by baying for the blood of the 'evil'? Many people have a streak of cruelty and a desire to inflict harm. The notion that there are evil people who are legitimate targets for this is a safe place to vent it whilst retaining a veneer of civilisation. They would be more at home in the dark ages where this was actively encouraged.

I haven’t had time to look properly ! I did google but based on my search terms it came up with a lot of Christa Pikes articles funnily enough, so I was scrolling through all those to find something relevant .

I did used to watch a fair bit of true crime but I can’t specifically recall the sentences given for crimes in Tennessee.

The woman said Rainer, who also used the names Sean Mitchell and Antwon Rainer, told her had just served 16 years in prison and did not fear going back. He was sentenced to 40 years in prison for killing an Orange Mound man and wounding his girlfriend in 1994, but was paroled after serving less than a third of his sentence.
The 2015 victim said Rainer drove her to an apartment near Hacks Cross and Winchester where he raped her. She eventually managed to escape, and a minister who lived in the complex saw her and called police.

But here’s one I found which I have not read up in detail other than this article but from what I can see - the man murdered one man and injured a woman and was given 40 years but only served about a third of his sentence before being paroled after only about 16 years, so he was clearly not given LWOP initially.

Tragically he raped a woman while he was out on parole so it’s only then that he was recalled and imprisoned for LWOP.

ETA: 15 years for being part of a horrific gang rape. According to the judge one of the saddest case he’s ever seen and yet only 15 years and I wonder if he will be out sooner ? https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/17083346/former-vanderbilt-commodores-player-cory-batey-sentenced-15-years-dorm-rape

If you want to see ' baying for blood' though why would you- look at the new thread on the planned public execution of the Fort Hood shooter.

Leader of the free world? What a joke. It's barbaric.

Killing a man is not "equally heinous" to luring a young girl to a remote site and torturing her to death. You said "equally heinous".

If her lawyer told her that she would "never" get the DP

Well if she claims it, I guess it must be true, she has no reason to lie.... Oh wait.

There is no way a lawyer, no matter how shit, no matter how inexperienced, would explain the gamble she was taking in terms like "Never". I'm sure he said it was well worth a punt and he'd have been right to because it was.

Every US legal expert who has commented on the case has said she was given bad advice, and the legal team at the time should have spent longer than 30 minutes trying to persuade her to take the plea deal, but if you know better than people who have worked in the field for years...

Every legal commentator I've seen thinks it was highly unusual for a jury to recommend death in this case which makes the bet she took a very good bet. We just know in hindsight it didn't pay off.

“Ineffective assistance of counsel” is a pretty standard claim in these cases and the appeals will have investigated that if there's any truth in it.

Honestly in some of their responses to the USA madness around at the minute, Iran is coming over as the reasonable one.

the response to trumps attack on the Pope and his AI image of him as a Jesus like figure for one.