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]

There’s a distinction made between not having the best counsel, and receiving deficient counsel. Her claims were deemed not to meet the standards set out in Strickland v. Washington.

Christa Pike alleges she received ineffective counsel twice, from the two separate legal teams that represented her for two separate convictions. It is a standard claim in death penalty appeals.

The sentences in different cases do not have to be the same. In capital cases it is up to the jury to pass sentence. A prosecutor in Tennessee will ask for the death penalty in cases of murder considered particularly heinous, but it up to the jury to judge whether that is appropriate. A jury can reject that and instead pass a sentence of lwop. Different juries will make different decisions

Her appeals in the basis of ineffective counsel were heard, and rejected. She appealed first to the sixth circuit, and then to the Supreme Court.

https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/19/19-1054/124745/20191206143507754Lower%20Court%20Opinions%20and%20Orders.pdf

https://www.oas.org/en/iachr/decisions/2026/US_14.754_E

That was just what I found in a quick search. There was limited details on his initial murder so I don’t know the circumstances and if he did torture or not. Yes he did not kill a young woman, but he still took a life of a man and attacked a woman. So yeah this is still an example of a man who has killed and shown himself dangerous to women being sentenced to less than LWOP/death penalty and serving less than 20 years (had he not raped someone!)

I am pretty sure if I had the time and energy to dig further I would find men in Tennessee doing killings that definitely involve torture that have got away with a lesser sentence than LWOP/Death penalty.

Also the other case I showed was a very disturbing case of gang rape
and the man got just 15 years despite Judge calling it one of the saddest cases he had heard.

I mean ALL these crimes (including Christa’s) are horrendous in their own way, so I wouldn’t split hairs over saying they are not quite as heinous.

Those courts also rejected her claims that lethal injection would put her at risk of cruel and unusual punishment due to her medical conditions, so I'm not sure I have a great deal of faith in their competence.

Also now I've read a bit more about her lawyers they seem bloody good.

The problem they had was she was 100pc guilty and all the aggravating factors were beyond doubt. So the defence had the nightmare scenario that anything they said about spontaneity or about the effect her past had on her metal state game the prosecution another chance to draw attention to the amount of planning and (I think) the fact that recreational drugs were the overwhelming factor affecting her mental state rather than past abuse. Of course that harms her case and destroys the experts credibility.

It's like everything they said to help her gave the defence an opportunity to pile on more evidence against her.

Apparently she herself was very keen to go down the NG route because "she didn't want to grow old in prison", so it wasn't even a clever bet on the balance of probabilities, it was mainly her gut feel. If they had put more effort into convincing her to go Guilty, we'd all be saying they should have take the punt and not bullied her into life without parole. As it happens I still think NG was the right way to go. We can see for the sympathy for her all over the media etc that the jury were highly likely not to recommend death. That was pretty unexpected in a state that hasn't executed a woman for 200 years.

In short not only were her defence above the standard required call the trial into question, but they were actually bloody good. They fully understood the issues and walked a nightmare tightrope where everything they could say in her defence would backfire and where their client wanted to go NG for fairly irrational reasons.

I am pretty sure if I had the time and energy to dig further I would find men in Tennessee doing killings that definitely involve torture that have got away with a lesser sentence than LWOP/Death penalty.

Well, if you had it would certainly have stood up your point. 👍

You:

Every US legal expert who has commented on the case has said she was given bad advice

Also you:

Those courts also rejected her claims that lethal injection would put her at risk of cruel and unusual punishment due to her medical conditions, so I'm not sure I have a great deal of faith in their competence.

So we trust some (un-named) self selected legal experts but not the legal experts in the courts.

And by pure chance the ones you trust happen to be the ones that agree with your own biases.

Again, I just don’t accept your suggestion that men in Tennessee guilty of heinous murders and rapes don’t (sometimes) get away with less than LWOP or death penalty.

I have already “stood up my point” with the cases I outlined.

A killing of a man and attack of a woman is what I called heinous - and so is gang rape. If that’s what I found in a few minutes there’s surely more to be uncovered unless I was just lucky enough to find the only cases like that in 3 minutes flat (doubtful!) .

It’s MN, it’s not a university essay that I have to provide a full range of in-depth sources to your satisfaction. Just like you didn’t post any linked evidence at all to support your claim in your reply to me!

No, those courts did not. Actually no court did.

The challenge to lethal injection as a method of execution was filed in the Davidson County Court. The State argued that this court was not the correct venue for the case, which the court agreed with. As such, they referred it to the Tennessee Supreme Court and closed their own case. The TN Supreme Court however sent it back because the case could not be transferred under the rule cited by the State. Davidson County Court was not informed of this.

Whether lethal injection was appropriate or not for Pike was not decided upon. Instead of requesting hanging which is not an approved method of execution in Tennessee, she could have instead chosen the electric chair. She did not. As such, the State proceeded with the standard lethal injection protocol.

I think a far bigger factor in different outcomes for committing the same crime isn't male/female but rich/poor.

In fact even for not committing a crime. Compare the number of innocent people who got the death penalty to the number of millionaires/billionaires.