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

Who knows. I can't believe that it would have made much difference to be honest. They'd never helped before, after all.

After her grandmother died, who was the only person who ever showed her love, she started running away from the beatings at home. She was hurting a lot and she began to drink a lot and to use marijuana to numb her feelings. This meant she got in with a bad crowd who did not help her control herself.

She was clearly failed by the adults in her life as a child and teenager, and then failed by an inexperienced legal team. Sadly not uncommon in the land of the free and god fearing, where it seems to be a problem that particularly affects the poor.

And just to clarify for any bad faith PP, that is not me trying to absolve her of responsibility, it's saying that there were mitigating factors that should have been taken into account at sentencing.

She was also in a car accident as a child where her head went through the windscreen. After she went to prison, the scar on her head was still 'serious' and the report says it's possible there was brain damage from that, too.

wow 😮 what the…..

also, about the bipolar; even with very strong medications to control it she still shows severe symptoms.

^while Christa is taking powerful psychiatric medications, she continues
to experience severe symptoms of bipolar disorder that are highly disruptive to her sleep, mood, thinking, and behavior. Even medicated, these severe symptoms are so disruptive to her mental status that she must have additional medications (i.e., Ativan) to interrupt her severe insomnia^

^at the time of the crimes, Christa was dealing with three contributing factors that
increased her irritability, and therefore, aggression: PTSD, bipolar disorder with manic or hypomanic episode, and PMS.
Experts in Bipolar disorder (Preskorn et al., 2022) warn that individuals with bipolar disorder are at risk for agitation turning into aggression if they are not treated:
…episodes of agitation associated with bipolar disorder are common. Symptoms
can range from mild (uneasiness, restlessness) to severe (aggression, violence) and escalation can occur quickly. Patients presenting with agitation require prompt
medical attention to facilitate evaluation and to prevent escalation and injury to
themselves and medical personnel.

This accident is the least of the difficult events in her childhood.

Christa Pike committed an appalling crime.

But she was not, in any way, mentally normal. She was severely ill and although after treatment in prison she was fairly stable, fairly, it's a terrible shame that she wasn't given the help that she needed as a child that stopped her becoming so mentally ill.

It's very bad when you have to commit torture and murder before you get help.

So do you think she should have had diminished responsibility verdict instead?

That’s the thing isn’t it… my best friend’s sister was diagnosed with Bi polar 12 years ago, she suffers with occasional psychosis and manic episodes which have resulted in stints in a facility. She’s unpleasant to be around, she’s a pathological liar and severely paranoid, BUT she has never attacked anyone.

There are so many people with mental health conditions who don’t go on to kill. If everyone with mental health chose violence there would be a hell of a lot more attacks and murders.

Wouldn’t this suggest that those who do act out violently had the propensity to it anyway, or dare I say a history of it, regardless of mental health.

Without a doubt, it’s become a huge tactic in defence.

Honestly, I don't know because I don't know American law.

I do think that she needed a proper lawyer with experience, not one who had graduated four months before.

I also think she should have gone to a secure psychiatric hospital, for a very very long time - life maybe.

But prison actually seems to have done more for her than her family or school or the police ever did.

She got treatment there.

Surely that argument would be equally true in the case of women with post partum psychosis who harm their baby. Most women with PPP don't harm their child, so if I woman does she must have an inherent propensity for violence.

I didn't report you. Apparently I'm not the only one who is fed up with you.

I believe the majority of people with mental health conditions are more of a danger to themselves than to others.

But there is no doubt that some people with severe mental ill health are violent. A girl I was at school with was stabbed at random by a 'care in the community' patient many years ago. She died.

I think most people in the wrong circumstances have the potential to be violent (not all). But mental illness can bring out aspects of people that they would never show if they were well.

I agree with this. Treatment in a secure facility until she was deemed stable enough to be released would have been an appropriate sentence. If she was never able to be rehabilitated, then life in a secure medical facility would have been appropriate.

No one has argued that she should not have been held in a secure facility for a lengthy period of time.

Despite what appears to be the belief on this thread, there is a massive amount of middle ground between the death penalty and no punishment at all.

🙄 ok.

As rebuttals go , this is most i can expect I suppose.
As lots and lots and lots of people have asked, why do you assume we all have sympathy for the murderers and none for the victims and their family's because we oppose CP? Are you unable to understand that 2 things can be true at once?

And whilst I am in the UK, my feelings towards the death penalty is a matter of civility - many Americans feel the same. As I have said before , several pages back - it's a mindset.

FYI, When there were public executions, some people took picnics and made a day of it, whilst others stayed away - mindset.

This is true. I worked with children and adolescents with mental health in a PICU and one patient used to attack everyone and was violent when her parents were told of this they was so shocked because she never ever had that in her.

Her victim never got to diagnosed with anything at all, what with being 17 when she was killed. I have bipolar, also been raped and abused.....which one of your teenagers can I smashed the head off? As always....it's all cool till its me and mine. Adults failed her no doubt....she still did it and apparently dehydrated herself to sabotage her veins.

Was that the same Grandmother who's boyfriend sexually abused her from the age of 2?

Its like what chance did she have?
Seizures from her mothers alcohol abuse,
Granmothers boyfriend sex abuse
Her mothers boyfriend physical & sexual abuse hang a paddle to beat her outside her bedroom door.
Stranger rape at 11, school reported it.
Failed suicide attempt at 12
And another stranger rape at 17.
Boyfriend at 18 threatened her with a knife
And a bipolar diagnosis
Years on death row
And now a botched execution.

What chance did she actually have in life?
If Hollywood made a movie it would be classed as far fetched.

She deserves some compassion. Surely?
I seriously think a State Prison type Hospital is where she should be placed.

Nobody is saying what she did was right.
But she clearly never got support from anywhere.

Colleen was 19.

The dehydration rumour is just that: an internet-fuelled rumour that has not been confirmed by anyone official and appears to have come from Pike refusing a special last meal and asking that the $20 allocated for it be used to buy pizza for the homeless.

Agree.

@Newname26 Yes it was the same grandmother. She had rotten taste in men.

Really hate the way Trump and the right use the death penalty for political gain.

Nor did Aileen but they killed her anyway.