Christa Pikes is awake and ‘talking’

[wouldntyouwanthelp]

She’s out of the coma and talking to her lawyers. Aibu to think the state of Tennessee can’t possibly try to do the lethal injection again ? Surely not? People on Reddit are suggesting she might need an amputation of one of her arms because of how caustic pentobarbital is.

Christa Pike 'conscious and speaking at hospital' after failed execution in US
https://news.sky.com/share/13595950

Part of the issue is that the US Constitution makes any cruel and unusual punishment unlawful. The Supreme Court has considered various methods of execution and deemed them not to be cruel and unusual punishments, and one of these is pentobarbital. Any attempt to cause death by another method (one which hadn't been previously considered and OKed by the Supreme Court) would be open to a fresh challenge, making the execution potentially unlawful.

This means in practice that States generally don't use the most reliable and up to date methods, unfortunately- any attempt with a new method would be challenged on the basis above, meaning more delays- so the easiest course is to use methods that have already been approved, even if they're actually unreliable and unsuitable. The whole thing is horrific sort of farce and utterly barbaric.

What you are not getting is the fact that her awful upbringing and possible foetal alcohol syndrome does not "excuse" her crime and the fact that she should be punished. She should indeed be punished and possibly never considered fit for release.

However her traumatic and abusive early life and fas should be considered after she has been found guilty and her treatment should be based on that. Absolutely nobody is excusing her for anything.

I kind of meant on a more general level- we all know death row inmates are there for years- saw one guy who'd annihilated an entire family during a burglary having tied them up first- can you imagine, you, your kids all tied up then one by one you're shot over the course of some hours? yet he gets to live for decades and bleed the appeal system dry- do you honestly support that? can you even imagine the impact on that family's wider family of this shithead being kept alive when he was supposed to die- that's where the cruelty is not with the POS criminal.
This is separate to whether the death penalty should exist- it does, he was convicted yet decades later he's still alive.
I get that there are different factors in the case we're discussing but to be honest bringing in bad childhoods just does it for me- others manage not to maim and kill.
She's entitled to appeal I absolutely concede that but I don't weep for her in any way. I feel the appeal system should be a lot shorter- multiple appeals make no sense and again, the agony for the victim's family. If I'd done something like that I wouldn't want to live with myself anyway- screw all the excuses.

But where do you draw the line? You're OK with him killing sex offenders, so that about when he takes that as carte blanche to kill petty thieves, tax fraudsters, TV licence dodgers, basically any prisoner who he doesn't like the look of?

God will know his own.

I'm saying that the death penalty isn't justified in any event. It may well be that she deserves further imprisonment, up to and including a whole life sentence. We do now have to take into account the fact that she almost certainly has further brain damage and will require an amputation, so it may be that she will require a long period of treatment also.

Sally Clarke and Angela Cannings were both found guilty of multiple murders on the evidence of a paediatrician with a god complex and a failure to understand basic statistics. What would have been the reaction to their executions- whoops?
I'm sure some of the PP from this thread would have been salivating over them being hanged.

So does this also apply to other murderers and male murderers?

" Hellfire and Brimstone" comes to mind.

And we are talking about the US here, where they have court cases over teaching young earth creationism at school.. as fact.

And apt for this thread, there is the entire concept of original sin. That is rather OT I would say.

Oh 100% there is corrupt police and incompetence in the US there is no doubt that at all there.

Thing is though, the death penalty is final and can’t be undone.

as discussed here it seems some people think a few wrongful convictions and innocent deaths are acceptable collateral.

As I said earlier- there have been more than 200 death row exonerations since 1973. if we started speeding up the process how many of those would have been executed before the truth came to light?

there needs to be no stone unturned so part of having the death penalty is long terms on death row. IMO in that case you may as well save all the ££ spent on legal teams and getting the sentence commuted and just give life sentences. Probably save the taxpayers a fortune.

None of which justifies following in their example, particularly given that the main perpetrator did not get the death sentence

Does anyone still believe that if we had public executions they would no longer attract a baying audience?

Plus death row demographics show non-whites make up a disproportionate percentage of inmates.

you’re also more likely to get a death sentence for killing a white person.

Of course they would, and the videos would trend on X, and people would be using AI to make them even worse.

Yes, if they too were 18 and suffered a life of physical, sexual, and emotional abuse and brain damage due to FAS, it would also apply to them.

The death sentence being inappropriate applies to all crimes, no matter how heinous, imo, but Pike's youth and history of abuse make it even less appropriate than usual.

I agree she should have served a long sentence; I don't agree and never will agree with sentencing an 18-year-old to death, regardless of any abuse in their past.

Well, yes, it is 100% hypocritical to say that we are killing you because we disapprove so much of the fact that you have killed someone. None of the other examples you quote are comparable.

as discussed here it seems some people think a few wrongful convictions and innocent deaths are acceptable collateral.

And too cowardly to admit it.

It appears the method of lethal injection as a means of execution is currently a clusterfuck on multiple levels and should be abandoned.

This makes for some morbid yet interesting reading:

Execution Method Comparison (1890–2010)
Execution Method and Historical Success Rate:
Firing Squad 100% *
Electrocution 98.08%
Hanging 96.88%
Lethal Gas 94.6%
Lethal Injection 92.8%

* Note: While the historical data model codes firing squads at a 0% failure rate, more recent individual instances (such as a 2025 execution in South Carolina) have involved complications.

Why the Lethal Injection Failure Rate is Rising
While the long-term historical failure rate sits at 7.2%, the method has become significantly less reliable in recent decades.

In 2022, a record 37% of U.S. execution attempts were botched or highly problematic. More recently, data stretching up through 2026 shows the overall lethal injection failure rate has climbed closer to 8%.

Experts attribute the high rate of complications to several factors:

• IV Access Issues: Executioners frequently struggle to find usable veins due to the poor medical histories or advanced age of death row inmates.

• Lack of Medical Personnel: Major medical organizations prohibit their members from participating in executions, leaving procedures to be carried out by untrained or poorly trained correctional staff.

• Unreliable Drugs: Due to pharmaceutical boycotts, states often resort to using illegally obtained drugs, compounding pharmacies, or untested single-drug protocols.

Survival vs. "Botched" Definitions
In the overwhelming majority of "botched" lethal injections, the prisoner still ultimately dies, but only after experiencing severe delays, prolonged pain, or repeated punctures. Historically, when an execution was completely halted, it was because staff failed to set the IV line before any drugs could be administered.

However, in a highly publicized October 2026 case, Tennessee inmate Christa Pike became the first person known to survive after the actual lethal chemicals were injected into her body. Experts believe a blown vein caused the drugs to leak into the surrounding muscle tissue rather than entering her bloodstream, leaving her alive but requiring emergency hospitalization.

So now you're saying because of all these things that should have been took into consideration during her trial means she should have got off lighter because of it.

Lmao 🤣 I keep getting told no one is excusing what she has done but this is exactly what people are doing by saying this exact thing that I have said is being said ffs 🤦🏼‍♀️

You have just proved what I have been saying all along. She shouldn’t have been punished the way she has for a horrendous crime she committed because she has had a horrific upbringing and brain damage.

@Fortuity

SEE

No, it's not. That's like saying it's hypocritical for the state to imprison someone against their will, because they imprisoned another citizen against their will. And yet we do just that, all the time.

The death penalty is barbaric there are no two ways about it. Two wrongs will never bring back the victim nor make this right.

There are around 75 people currently in prison in the UK on whole life sentences. I don't really think they are contributing massively to prison overcrowding.

@RedTagAlan And apt for this thread, there is the entire concept of original sin. That is rather OT I would say.

Err, no.
The formal doctrine of original sin—the belief that all humans inherit guilt and a sinful nature from Adam—was developed later in Christian theology, heavily shaped by the 5th-century church father Saint Augustine and later grounded by New Testament passages like Romans 5: v 12 - 21

You’re seeing it through your eyes.

Define “get off lighter”

if you’ve been abused all your life solitary confinement, away from the hands of humans who hurt you, fed and warm, well that may be luxury, not punishment.

”punishment” for someone like Christa may actually be psychiatric treatment so she understands what she has done, and the harm she has caused. Then she has to live a lifetime with that burden.

death penalty is pointless. She knows humans hurt each other, this is just more of the same. No regret, no acceptance of her actions. Doesn’t achieve anything. She’ll be dead, or should have been. No more pain.