Tennessee Republicans consider more execution options after Christa Pike lethal injection fails
Some of Tennessee’s top Republicans said Monday they want to explore alternative ways of executing condemned prisoners after the failed execution of Christa Pike, which relied on a large dose of pentobarbital.
U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, the state’s Republican candidate for governor, said Pike’s unsuccessful execution last week “should not be grounds to halt carrying out the death penalty.” Rather, she said, Tennessee needs to reevaluate the way it does executions.
“If it’s lethal injection, if it is electric chair, what we do know is we have to find a way to do this — and do it successfully,” Blackburn told The Associated Press.
Top legislative leaders have already spoken with Blackburn about potential changes to state execution laws during their 2027 session.
“We want to broaden it, include more methods," House Speaker Cameron Sexton said. "What those are as of today, I’m not sure. But I don’t think there’s any method that’s off the table at this point.”
Most U.S. states that allow executions use lethal injection as their primary means, though South Carolina sets its default as electrocution and Idaho the firing squad, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Some states give prisoners a choice of execution methods. Death by electricity or gas is authorized in nine states, including five that specify nitrogen gas, the center said. Five states authorize a firing squad.
Florida, which leads the nation in executions this year, uses a three-drug lethal injection that includes a sedative, a paralytic and a drug that stops the heart.
Tennessee's execution procedures have been in the national spotlight since Wednesday, when prison officials gave Pike two doses of a barbiturate that were supposed to be lethal but didn't ultimately kill her. Pike has remained hospitalized under guard, left unconscious and on a ventilator with blisters and burns on her arms from the drug, her lawyers have said.
Pike, now 50, was sentenced to death for the 1995 torture and slaying of a classmate, Colleen Slemmer. Pike was age 18 at the time and became one of the youngest women sent to death row.
Republican Gov. Bill Lee, whose term ends in January, halted the one remaining execution scheduled for this year and ordered an independent investigation into the state’s capital punishment system after Pike's failed execution. He said Saturday the commissioner of the Department of Correction will step down.
Blackburn said comprehensive change is needed — “it is personnel, processes, procedures, protocols that are all going to need to be addressed.”
Tennessee law already allows electrocution if the department is unable to carry out a lethal injection despite reasonable efforts to do so. State law also gives people who committed crimes before 1999 the option of choosing electrocution.
Between 2018 and 2020, five Tennessee prisoners chose electrocution. That could remain an option for about two dozen of the 40 people on death row.
Sexton said the legislature could consider amending the law to give the state a choice of execution methods.
House Majority Leader William Lamberth said he is open to making electrocution the state's primary means of execution. But no matter the method, Lamberth said he doesn't want any changes to take too long to implement.
“We want these sentences to be carried out effectively, efficiently and humanely," he said, adding: "Whatever we do, I do not want it to delay justice for these victims’ families.”
Republican state Sen. Todd Gardenhire, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he expects a deliberate review of what went wrong and what can be done to improve the execution process.
“I think the electric chair is the quickest and simplest way to do it,” he said.
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