US death row inmate survives execution attempt

0:00News Talk Breakfast with Anton Savage In Association with Air Listening to News Talk Breakfast with Kyrodoharides sitting in for Antlund this morning, now Christophe Pike, a death row inmate in Tennessee, has been taken to hospital after an attempt to execute her by two lethal injections failed last night. I'm now joined by Trino Conner, criminologist for more on this quite extraordinary story. You're very welcome to the program. Trina, before we talk about this attempt to execute Christophe Pike, take us back to the crime that she was convicted of back in 1996. Yeah, good morning, Kyros. So in the 1990s, Pike was convicted of what was known as the job corpse mortar. So this was in Knoxville in Tennessee. Pike and two other accomplices one being her boyfriend tortured and murdered their classmates, Colleen Semmer.

1:02So they were in one of these reform camps for trouble teens and the motivation for the mortar was apparently jealousy, but it was the extent of the injuries to the victim and the manner in which the mortar was carried out that really caused a lot of headlines in the state because it was quite satanic in the abuse that they gave this young lady. So at that time, Pike was convicted and given a death penalty and her boyfriend was 17 at the time. He was given a life sentence because of his age. Now during the court case, a lot of Pike's defence considering her childhood neglect and abuse wasn't really considered and the science around the adolescent brain and how it can lack impulse control and that kind of thing really wasn't there at the time. So a lot of that really wasn't considered when she was given her life sentence or conviction. And there have been multiple attempts to stop the execution, including appeals to the US Supreme Court and this

2:06was personal appeals to Tennessee's governor all rejected. Yeah, they were all rejected and I suppose that's one of the reasons why your defence are saying that this was butch because there has been problems in Texas before particularly in this year. So this kind of midnight rush to be the deadline that they have. Sometimes that can cause things not to go the way they should go. And in this case, actually, it's the same doctor who was involved in a botched attempt of email in Texas in the last couple of months as well. So that's kind of an issue that they're having that if the issue has been given that the deadline is midnight that they are running ahead, I'm not sure to beat them deadlines and not looking and taking care of the protocols that need to be there. That's part of the argument. And we know that Pax legal team had raised multiple concerns about how this execution would be carried out and the potential for the difficulties that they have no encounter. Yeah, one of the things that they pointed out was the issue where our veins

3:06and how she had tin veins and that kind of thing and they also issued some warnings around the drugs that I use because of the last botched attempt. Like in this case, she received two full doses of the drugs and she still didn't pass away. And now they're worried that she may have some brain damage because of the time that I left before giving her the critical care to bring her back. The team also will now, I imagine, argue because there's like a legal limbo here now, but they will probably argue that any second attempt to give her the dependency will violate the eight-demandment, which is a protection around cruel and unusual punishment for individuals in the United States. So she was, as you say, in receipt of those two doses of Pento Arbital last night, which is the lethal injection. Do we know what happened and what condition she is now in because I know she's been taken to a hospital? All I know and all I can see is that she's been taken to hospital where does an assessment been done and whether there has been any brain damage. What happened was the court and were pulled over twice under people watching

4:12say that they heard her, that they could see that she was snoring, that she was so snoozing away. It doesn't appear that there was any kind of jerk and or anything like that going, but that she was just in a peaceful, low, low sleep, a deep sleep. So we don't know at this stage what condition she's in. But it's been reported that she did obviously lose consciousness, but she still has a heartbeat, so she is still medically alive at this point. What's going to happen next, do you think, Trina? I'm not sure. I think probably because if if when they do an assessment and they find that she may be brain dead, well, then it would probably go the way it would normally go. If somebody is on a machine, there would probably be machine, the torrent off. If she isn't brain damaged, I think that's where it's going to raise all sorts of arguments. But I suppose this happening again in Texas creates the conversation around how you may end the depamp, how safe it is. I genuinely don't know what's going to be. It's going to be one to watch what interest to see what happens from here on out. We know that she has spent 30 years in forced isolation. If she was

5:16executed, she would account for just 1% of all modern executions. The majority of women aren't actually executed in the United States, even if they are convicted of these really heinous crimes. This would have been the forced female to be medically killed in 200 years in the United States. I suppose that help peace around her being in solitary confinement for 20 years because, effectively, she was the only female on death row, so there wasn't anyone else. They had to keep her in solitary confinement, like the criticism there about the human rights of the individual as well. Also on this, there's something that needs to be considered, the victims in this case, like the family of the victim, people that would have been there for this execution and the trauma that that caused them and the 30 years they've been waiting. So everybody in this is all being traumatized, including the person who is possibly medically injured as well. All right, Trino O'Connor, criminologist. Thank you for bringing us an update on that. That is it from us

6:17here on NewsTalk Breakfast today.